KB
 
 IBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 Uniform with American Orations 
 
 BRITISH ORATIONS, edited, with introduc- 
 tions and notes, by CHARLES K. ADAMS, Profes- 
 sor of History in the University of Michigan. 
 3 vols. 16 mo 
 
 PROSE MASTERPIECES FROM MODERN 
 ESSAYISTS, comprising single specimen es- 
 says from IRVING, LEIGH HUNT, LAMB, DE 
 QUINCKV, LANDOR, SYDNEY SMITH, THACK- 
 ERAY, EMERSON, ARNOLD, MORLEY, HELPS, 
 KlNGSLEY, RUSKIN, LOWELL, CARLYLE, MAC- 
 AULAY, FROUDE, FREEMAN, GLADSTONE, NEW- 
 MAN, LESLIE STEPHEN. 3 vols., 16 mo, bevelled 
 boards, each $1.25 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
 
 REPRESENTATIVE 
 
 AMERICAN ORATIONS 
 
 TO ILLUSTRATE 
 
 AMERICAN POLITICAL HISTORY 
 
 EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTIONS 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER JOHNSTON 
 
 PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE 
 COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY 
 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 1884
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 1884. 
 
 Press of 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 New York
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY . . I 
 
 I, COLONIALISM. 
 THE FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION ... 9 
 
 PATRICK HENRY 18 
 
 CONVENTION OF DELEGATES, MARCH 28, 1775. 
 
 PATRICK HENRY 24 
 
 ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING THE FEDERAL CONSTI- 
 TUTION CONVENTION OF VIRGINIA, JUNE 4, 1788. 
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 30 
 
 ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING THE FEDERAL CONSTI- 
 TUTIONCONVENTION OF NBW YORK, JUNE 24, 1788. 
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON 44 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 30, 1789. 
 
 II. CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT 55 
 
 FISHER AMES 64 
 
 ON THE BRITISH TREATY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 APRIL 28, 1796. 
 
 JOHN NICHOLAS 83 
 
 ON THE PROPOSED REPEAL OF THE SEDITION LAW HOUSE 
 OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 25, 1799. 
 
 iii
 
 IV CONTENTS. 
 
 III. THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY 99 
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON 108 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OP THOMAS JEFFERSON, AS PRESIDENT 
 OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 4, 1801. 
 
 ELIPHALET NOTT 117 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON, JULY 9, 1804 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y. 
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH 129 
 
 ON THE MILITIA BILL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, DE- 
 CEMBER 10, 1811. 
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY 145 
 
 ON THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA HOUSE OF REPRESENTA- 
 TIVES, JANUARY 14, 1811 
 
 HENRY CLAY 170 
 
 ON THB WAR OF i8ia HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JAN- 
 UARY 8, 1813. 
 
 IV. THE RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALITY 183 
 
 JOHN C. CALHOUN 196 
 
 ON NULLIFICATION AND THE FORCE BILL, IN THE UNITED 
 STATES SENATE, FEBRUARY 15, 1833. 
 
 ROBERT Y. HAYNE 213 
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION, IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, 
 JANUARY 21, 1830. 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 228 
 
 IN REPLY TO HAYNE, IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE, JAN- 
 UARY 26, 1830.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 ALL authorities are agreed that the political 
 history of the United States, beyond much that 
 is feeble or poor in quality, has given to the 
 English language very many of its most finished 
 and most persuasive specimens of oratory. It 
 is natural that oratory should be a power in a re- 
 public ; but, in the American republic, the force 
 of institutions has been reinforced by that of a 
 language which is peculiarly adapted to the dis- 
 play of eloquence. Collections of American 
 orations have been numerous and useful, but 
 the copiousness of the material has always 
 proved a source of embarrassment. Where the 
 supply is so abundant, it is exceedingly difficult 
 to make selections on any exact system, and 
 yet impossible to include all that has a fair 
 claim to the distinctive stamp of oratory. The 
 results have been that our collections of public
 
 2 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 speeches have proved either unsatisfactory or 
 unreasonably voluminous. 
 
 The design which has controlled the present 
 collection has been to make such selections from 
 the great orations of American history as shall 
 show most clearly the spirit and motives which 
 have actuated its leaders, and to connect them 
 by a thread of commentary which shall convey 
 the practical results of the conflicts of opinion 
 revealed in the selections. In the execution of 
 such a work much must be allowed for personal 
 limitations ; that which would seem representa- 
 tive to one would not seem at all representative 
 to others. It will not be difficult to mark omis- 
 sions, some of which may seem to mar the com- 
 pleteness of the work very materially ; the only 
 claim advanced is that the work has been done 
 with a consistent desire to show the best side of 
 all lines of thought which have seriously modi- 
 fied the course of American history. Some 
 great names will be missed from the list of 
 orators, and some great addresses from the list 
 of orations ; the apology for their omission is
 
 IN TROD UCTOR Y. 3 
 
 that they have not seemed to be so closely re- 
 lated to the current of American history or so 
 operative upon its course as to demand their in- 
 sertion. Any errors under this head have oc- 
 curred in spite of careful consideration and 
 anxious desire to be scrupulously impartial. 
 
 Very many of the orations selected have been 
 condensed by the omission of portions which 
 had no relevancy to the purpose in hand, or 
 were of only a temporary interest and impor- 
 tance. Such omissions have been indicated, so 
 that the reader need not be misled, while the 
 effort has been made to so manage the omissions 
 as to maintain a complete logical connection 
 among the parts which have been put to use. 
 A tempting method of preserving such a con- 
 nection is, of course, the insertion of words or 
 sentences which the speaker might have used, 
 though he did not ; but such a method seemed 
 too dangerous and possibly too misleading, and 
 it has been carefully avoided. None of the selec- 
 tions contain a word of foreign matter, with 
 the exception of one of Randolph's speeches
 
 4 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 and Mr. Beecher's Liverpool speech, where the 
 matter inserted has been taken from the only 
 available report, and is not likely to mislead the 
 reader. For very much the same reason, foot- 
 notes have been avoided, and the speakers have 
 been left to speak for themselves. 
 
 Such a process of omission will reveal to any 
 one who undertakes it an underlying character- 
 istic of our later, as distinguished from our 
 earlier, oratory. The careful elaboration of the 
 parts, the restraint of each topic treated to its 
 appropriate part, and the systematic develop- 
 ment of the parts into a symmetrical whole, are 
 as markedly present in the latter as they are 
 absent in the former. The process of selection 
 has therefore been progressively more difficult 
 as the subject-matter has approached contem- 
 porary times. In our earlier orations, the dis- 
 tinction and separate treatment of the parts is 
 so carefully observed that it has been compara- 
 tively an easy task to seize and appropriate the 
 parts especially desirable. In our later orations, 
 with some exceptions, there is an evidently de-
 
 IN TROD UCTOR Y. 5 
 
 creasing attention to system. The whole is 
 often a collection of disjecta membra of argu- 
 ments, so interdependent that omissions of any 
 sort are exceedingly dangerous to the meaning 
 of the speaker. To do justice to his meaning, 
 and give the whole oration, would be an impos- 
 sible strain on the space available ; to omit any 
 portion is usually to lose one or more buttresses 
 of some essential feature in his argument. The 
 distinction is submitted without any desire to 
 explain it on theory, but only as a suggestion 
 of a practical difficulty in a satisfactory execu- 
 tion of the work. 
 
 The general division of the work has been 
 into (l) Colonialism, to 1789; (2) Constitutional 
 Government, to 1801 ; (3) the Rise of Democ- 
 racy, to 1815 ; (4) the Rise of Nationality, to 
 1840; (5) the Slavery struggle, to 1860; (6) Se- 
 cession and Reconstruction, to 1876; (7) Free 
 Trade and Protection. In such a division, it has 
 been found necessary to include, in a few cases, 
 orations which have not been strictly within the 
 time limits of the topic, but have had a close
 
 INTROD UCTOR Y. 
 
 logical connection with it. It is hoped, how- 
 ever, that all such cases .will show their own ne- 
 cessity too clearly for any need of further ex- 
 planation or excuse. 
 
 The work will be completed in three volumes. 
 
 PRINCETON, N. J., July i, 1884.
 
 I. 
 
 COLONIALISM. 
 
 THE FORMATION OF THE CON- 
 STITUTION.
 
 I. 
 
 COLONIALISM. 
 
 THE FORMATION OF THE CON- 
 STITUTION. 
 
 IT has been said by an excellent authority 
 that the Constitution was " extorted from the 
 grinding necessities of a reluctant people." 
 The truth of the statement is very quickly rec- 
 ognized by even the most surface student of 
 American politics. The struggle which be- 
 gan in 1774-5 was the direct outcome of the 
 spirit of independence. Rather than submit to 
 a degrading government by the arbitrary will 
 of a foreign Parliament, the Massachusetts 
 people chose to enter upon an almost unprece- 
 dented war of a colony against the mother 
 country. Rather than admit the precedent of 
 the oppression of a sister colony, the other 
 9
 
 IO COLONIALISM. 
 
 colonies chose to support Massachusetts in her 
 resistance. Resistance to Parliament involved 
 resistance to the Crown, the only power which 
 had hitherto claimed the loyalty of the colo- 
 nists ; and one evil feature of the Revolution 
 was that the spirit of loyalty disappeared for a 
 time from American politics. There were, 
 without doubt, many individual cases of loyalty 
 to " Continental interests " ; but the mass of 
 the people had merely unlearned their loyalty 
 to the Crown, and had learned no other loyalty 
 to take its place. Their nominal allegiance 
 to the individual colony was weakened by their 
 underlying consciousness that they really were 
 a part of a greater nation ; their national 
 allegiance had never been claimed by any 
 power. 
 
 The weakness of the confederation was ap- 
 parent even before its complete ratification. 
 The Articles of Confederation were proposed 
 by the Continental Congress, Nov. 15, 1777. 
 They were ratified by eleven States during the 
 year 1778, and Delaware ratified in 1779.
 
 COLONIALISM. 1 1 
 
 Maryland alone held out and refused to ratify 
 for two years longer. Her long refusal was 
 due to her demand for a national control of the 
 Western territory, which many of the States 
 were trying to appropriate. It was not until 
 there was positive evidence that the Western 
 territory was to be national property that 
 Maryland acceded to the articles, and they 
 went into operation. The interval had given 
 time for study of them, and their defects were 
 so patent that there was no great expectation 
 among thinking men of any other result than 
 that which followed. The national power which 
 the confederation sought to create was an en- 
 tire nonentity. There was no executive power, 
 except committees of Congress, and these had 
 no powers to execute. Congress had practi- 
 cally only the power to recommend to the States. 
 It had no power to tax, to support armies or 
 navies, to provide for the interest or payment 
 of the public debt, to regulate commerce or in- 
 ternal affairs, or to perform any other function 
 of an efficient national government. It was
 
 1 2 COLONIALISM. 
 
 merely a convenient instrument of repudiation 
 for the States ; Congress was to borrow money 
 and incur debts, which the States could refuse 
 or neglect to provide for. Under this system 
 affairs steadily drifted from bad to worse for 
 some six years after the formal ratification of 
 the articles. There seemed to be no remedy 
 in the forms of law, for the articles expressly 
 provided that no alteration was to be made ex- 
 cept by the assent of every State. Congress 
 proposed alterations, such as the temporary 
 grant to Congress of power to levy duties on 
 imports ; but these proposals were always 
 vetoed by one or more states. 
 
 In 1780, in a private letter, Hamilton had 
 suggested a convention of the States to revise 
 the articles, and as affairs grew worse the prop- 
 osition was renewed by others. The first at- 
 tempt to hold such a convention, on the call of 
 Virginia, was a failure ; but five States sent 
 delegates to Annapolis, and these wisely con- 
 tented themselves with recommending another 
 convention in the following year. Congress
 
 COLONIALISM. 13 
 
 was persuaded to endorse this summons ; twelve 
 of the States chose delegates, and the conven- 
 tion met at Philadelphia, May, 14, 1787. A 
 quorum was obtained, May 25th, and the de- 
 liberations of the convention lasted until Sept. 
 28th, when the Constitution was reported to 
 Congress. 
 
 The difficulties which met the convention 
 were mainly the results of the division of the 
 States into large and small States. Massachu- 
 setts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, and 
 Georgia, the States Avhich claimed to extend to 
 the Mississippi on the west and cherished in- 
 definite expectations of future growth, were the 
 " large " States. They desired to give as much 
 power as possible to the new national govern- 
 ment, on condition that the government should 
 be so framed that they should have control of 
 it. The remaining States were properly " small " 
 states, and desired to form a government which 
 would leave as much power as possible to the 
 States. Circumstances worked strongly in favor 
 of a reasonable result. There never were more
 
 14 COLONIALISM. 
 
 than eleven States in the convention. Rhode 
 Island, a small State, sent no delegates. The 
 New Hampshire delegates did not appear until 
 the New York delegates (except Hamilton) had 
 lost patience and retired from the convention. 
 Pennsylvania was usually neutral. The con- 
 vention was thus composed of five large, five 
 small, and one neutral State ; and almost all its 
 decisions were the outcome of judicious com- 
 promise. 
 
 The large States at first proposed a Congress 
 in both of whose Houses the State representa- 
 tion should be proportional. They would thus 
 have had a clear majority in both Houses, and, 
 as Congress was to elect the President, and 
 other officers, the government would thus have 
 been a large State government. When " the 
 little States gained their point," by forcing 
 through the equal representation of the States 
 in the Senate, the unsubstantial nature of the 
 " national " pretensions of the large States at 
 once became apparent. The opposition to the 
 whole scheme centred in the large States, with
 
 COLONIALISM. 1 5 
 
 very considerable assistance from New York, 
 which was not satisfied with the concessions 
 which the small States had obtained in the con- 
 vention. The difficulty of ratification may be 
 estimated from the final votes in the following 
 State conventions : Massachusetts, 187 to 168; 
 New Hampshire, 57 to 46 ; Virginia, 89 to 79 ; 
 and New York, 30 to 27. It should also be 
 noted that the last two ratifications were only 
 made after the ninth State (New Hampshire) 
 had ratified, and when it was certain that the 
 Constitution would go into effect with or with- 
 out the ratification of Virginia or New York. 
 North Carolina did not ratify until 1789, and 
 Rhode Island not until 1790. 
 
 The division between North and South also 
 appeared in the convention. In order to carry 
 over the Southern States to the support of the 
 final compromise, it was necessary to insert a 
 guarantee of the slave trade for twenty years, 
 and a provision that three fifths of the slaves 
 should be counted in estimating the population 
 for State representation in Congress. But these
 
 1 6 COLONIALISM. 
 
 provisions, so far as we can judge from the de- 
 bates of the time, had no influence against the 
 ratification of the Constitution ; the struggle 
 turned on the differences between the national 
 leaders, aided by the satisfied small States, on 
 one side, and the leaders of the State party, 
 aided by the dissatisfied States, large and small, 
 on the other. The former, the Federalists, were 
 successful, though by very narrow majorities in 
 several of the States. Washington was unani- 
 mously elected the first President of the Re- 
 public ; and the new government was inaugu- 
 rated at New York, March 4, 1789. 
 
 The speech of Henry in the Virginia House 
 of Delegates has been chosen as perhaps the 
 best representative of the spirit which impelled 
 and guided the Revolution itself; and apart of 
 the same orator's argument against the Consti- 
 tution in the Virginia convention will show the 
 manner in which the survival of the same spirit 
 acted against the adoption of an efficient gov- 
 ernment. It is fortunate that the ablest of the 
 national leaders was placed in the very focus of
 
 COLONIALISM, 1 7 
 
 opposition to the Constitution, so that we may 
 take Hamilton's argument in the New York 
 convention as the most carefully stated con- 
 clusion of the master-mind of the Federal party. 
 To indicate the result the inaugural address of 
 President Washington has been added.
 
 PATRICK HENRY, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA 
 (BORN 1736, DIED 1799). 
 
 CONVENTION OF DELEGATES, MARCH 28, 1775- 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT: 
 
 No man thinks more highly than I do of the 
 patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very 
 worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the 
 House. But different men often see the same 
 subject in different lights; and, therefore, I 
 hope that it will not be thought disrespectful 
 to those gentlemen, if, entertaining as I do, 
 opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, 
 I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and 
 without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. 
 The question before the House is one of awful 
 moment to this country. For my own part I 
 consider it as nothing less than a question of 
 freedom or slavery ; and in proportion to the 
 magnitude of the subject ought to be the free- 
 dom of the debate. It is only in this way that 
 18
 
 CONVENTION OF DELEGATES. 19 
 
 we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfil the 
 great responsibility which we hold to God and 
 our country. Should I keep back my opinions 
 at such a time, through fear of giving offence, 
 I should consider myself as guilty of treason 
 toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty 
 toward the majesty of heaven, which I revere 
 above all earthly kings. 
 
 Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge 
 in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut 
 our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to 
 the song of that syren, till she transforms us 
 into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, 
 engaged in a great and arduous struggle for 
 liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number 
 of those who, having eyes, see not, and having 
 ears, hear not, the things which so nearly con- 
 cern their temporal salvation ? For my part, 
 whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am 
 willing to know the whole truth ; to know the 
 worst and to provide for it. 
 
 I have but one lamp by which my feet are 
 guided ; and that is the lamp of experience. I 
 know of no way of judging of the future but by 
 the past. And judging by the past, I wish to 
 know what there has been in the conduct of 
 the British ministry for the last ten years, to
 
 2O PATRICK HENRY. 
 
 justify those hopes with which gentlemen have 
 been pleased to solace themselves and the 
 House ? Is it that insidious smile with which 
 our petition has been lately received ? Trust it 
 not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. 
 Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a 
 kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious recep- 
 tion of our petition comports with these war- 
 like preparations which cover our waters and 
 darken our land. Are fleets and armies neces- 
 sary to a work of love and reconciliation ? 
 Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be 
 reconciled, that force must be called in to win 
 back our love ? Let us not deceive ourselves, 
 sir. These are the implements of war and 
 subjugation; the last arguments to which kings 
 resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this 
 martial array, if its purpose be not to force us 
 to submission? Can gentlemen assign any 
 other possible motives for it? Has Great 
 Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, 
 to call for all this accumulation of navies and 
 armies? No, sir, she has none. They are 
 meant for us ; they can be meant for no other. 
 They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us 
 those chains which the British ministry have 
 been so long forging. And what have we to
 
 CONVENTION OF DELEGATES. 21 
 
 oppose to them? Shall we try argument? 
 Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten 
 years. Have we any thing new to offer on the 
 subject ? Nothing. We have held the subject 
 up in every light of which it is capable ; but it 
 has been all in vain. Shall we resort to en- 
 treaty and humble supplication ? What terms 
 shall we find which have not been already 
 exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, 
 deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done 
 every thing that could be done, to avert the 
 storm which is now coming on. We have 
 petitioned ; we have remonstrated ; we have 
 supplicated ; we have prostrated ourselves be- 
 fore the throne, and have implored its interpo- 
 sition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the 
 ministry and parliament. Our petitions have 
 been slighted ; our remonstrances have pro- 
 duced additional violence and insult ; our sup- 
 plications have been disregarded ; and we have 
 been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of 
 the throne. In vain, after these things, may 
 we indulge the fond hope of peace and recon- 
 ciliation. There is no longer any room for 
 hope. If we wish to be free if we mean to 
 preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges 
 for which we have been so long contending if
 
 22 PATRICK HENRY. 
 
 we mean not basely to abandon the noble 
 struggle in which we have been so long en- 
 gaged, and which we have pledged ourselves 
 never to abandon until the glorious object of 
 our contest shall be obtained, we must fight ! 
 I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal to 
 arms and to the God of Hosts is all that is left 
 usl 
 
 They tell us, sir, that we are weak ; unable 
 to cope with so formidable an adversary. But 
 when shall we be stronger? Will it be the 
 next week, or the next year? Will it be when 
 we are totally disarmed, and when a British 
 guard shall be stationed in every house ? Shall 
 we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? 
 Shall we acquire the means of effectual resist- 
 ance, by lying supinely on our backs, and hug- 
 ging the delusive phantom of hope, until our 
 enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? 
 Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use 
 of the means which the God of nature hath 
 placed in our power. Three millions of people, 
 armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such 
 a country as that which we possess, are invin- 
 cible by any force which our enemy can send 
 against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our 
 battles alone. There is a just God who presides
 
 CONVENTION- OF DELEGATES. 2$ 
 
 over the destinies of nations; and who will 
 raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The 
 battle, sir, is not to the strong alone ; it is to 
 the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, 
 sir, we have no election. If we were base 
 enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire 
 from the contest. There is no retreat, but in 
 submission and slavery ! Our chains are forged ! 
 Their clanking may be heard on the plains of 
 Boston ! The war is inevitable and let it 
 come ! I repeat it, sir, let it come ! 
 
 It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. 
 Gentlemen may cry peace, peace but there is 
 no peace. The war is actually begun ! The 
 next gale that sweeps from the north will 
 bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms ! 
 Our brethren are already in the field ! Why 
 stand we here idle ? What is it that gentlemen 
 wish ? What would they have ? Is life so dear, 
 or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the 
 price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Al- 
 mighty God ! I know not what course others 
 may take ; but as for me, give me liberty, or 
 give me death !
 
 PATRICK HENRY, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING THE FEDERAL 
 
 CONSTITUTION CONVENTION OF VIRGINIA, 
 
 JUNE 4, 1788. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN : 
 
 The public mind, as well as my own, is ex- 
 tremely uneasy at the proposed change of 
 government. Give me leave to form one of 
 the number of those who wish to be thoroughly 
 acquainted with the reasons of this perilous 
 and uneasy situation, and why we are brought 
 hither to decide on this great national ques- 
 tion. I consider myself as the servant of the 
 people of this commonwealth, as a sentinel 
 over their rights, liberty, and happiness. I 
 represent their feelings when I say, that they 
 are exceedingly uneasy, being brought from 
 that state of full security, which they enjoy 
 to the present delusive appearance of things. 
 Before the meeting of the late Federal conven- 
 24
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 2$ 
 
 tion at Philadelphia, a general peace and an 
 universal tranquillity prevailed in this country, 
 and the minds of our citizens were at perfect 
 repose ; but since that period, they are ex- 
 ceedingly uneasy and disquieted. When I 
 wished for an appointment to this convention, 
 my mind was extremely agitated for the situa- 
 tion of public affairs. I conceive the republic 
 to be in extreme danger. If our situation be 
 thus uneasy, whence has arisen this fearful 
 jeopardy? It arises from this fatal system; 
 it arises from a proposal to change our govern- 
 ment a proposal that goes to the utter an- 
 nihilation of the most solemn engagements of 
 the States a proposal of establishing nine 
 States into a confederacy, to the eventual ex- 
 clusion of four States. It goes to the annihila- 
 tion of those solemn treaties we have formed 
 with foreign nations. The present circum- 
 stances of France, the good offices rendered 
 us by that kingdom, require our most faithful 
 and most punctual adherence to our treaty 
 with her. We are in alliance with the Span- 
 iards, the Dutch, the Prussians ; those treaties 
 bound us as thirteen States, confederated to- 
 gether. Yet here is a proposal to sever that 
 confederacy. Is it possible that we shall
 
 26 PATRICK HENRY. 
 
 abandon all our treaties and national engage- 
 ments ? And for what ? I expected to have 
 heard the reasons of an event so unexpected 
 to my mind, and many others. Was our 
 civil polity or public justice endangered or 
 sapped ? Was the real existence of the country- 
 threatened, or was this preceded by a mourn- 
 ful progression of events? This proposal of 
 altering our Federal government is of a most 
 alarming nature: make the best of this new 
 government say it is composed by any thing 
 but inspiration you ought to be extremely 
 cautious, watchful, jealous of your liberty ; 
 for instead of securing your rights, you may 
 lose them forever. If a wrong step be now 
 made, the republic may be lost forever. If this 
 new government will not come up to the ex- 
 pectation of the people, and they should be dis- 
 appointed, their liberty will be lost, and tyr- 
 anny must and will arise. I repeat it again, 
 and beg, gentlemen, to consider, that a wrong 
 step, made now, will plunge us into misery, and 
 our republic will be lost. It will be necessary 
 for this convention to have a faithful historical 
 detail of the facts, that preceded the session of 
 the Federal convention, and the reasons that 
 actuated its members in proposing an entire al-
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 27 
 
 teration of government and to demonstrate the 
 dangers that awaited us. If they were of such 
 awful magnitude, as to warrant a proposal so 
 extremely perilous as this, I must assert, that 
 this convention has an absolute right to a 
 thorough discovery of every circumstance rela- 
 tive to this great event. And here I would 
 make this inquiry of those worthy characters 
 who composed a part of the late Federal con- 
 vention. I am sure they were fully impressed 
 with the necessity of forming a great consoli- 
 dated government instead of a confederation. 
 That this is a consolidated government is de- 
 monstrably clear; and the danger of such a 
 government is, to my mind, very striking. I 
 have the highest veneration for those gentle- 
 men ; but, sir, give me leave to demand, what 
 right had they to say, " We, the People " ? My 
 political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious 
 solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to 
 ask, who authorized them to speak the language 
 of, "We, the People," instead of We, the 
 States ? States are the characteristics and the 
 soul of a confederation. If the States be not 
 the agents of this compact, it must be one 
 great consolidated national government of the 
 people of all the States. I have the highest re-
 
 28 PATRICK HENRY. 
 
 spect for those gentlemen who formed the con- 
 vention ; and were some of them not here, I 
 would express some testimonal of esteem for 
 them. America had on a former occasion put 
 the utmost confidence in them ; a confidence 
 which was well placed ; and I am sure, sir, I 
 would give up any thing to them ; I would 
 cheerfully confide in them as my representa- 
 tives. But, sir, on this great occasion, I would 
 demand the cause of their conduct. Even from 
 that illustrious man who saved us by his valor, 
 I would have a reason for his conduct ; that 
 liberty which he has given us by his valor tells 
 me to ask this reason, and sure I am, were he 
 here, he would give us that reason ; but there 
 are other gentlemen here who can give us this 
 information. The people gave them no power 
 to use their name. That they exceeded their 
 power is perfectly clear. It is not mere curi- 
 osity that actuates me ; I wish to hear the real, 
 actual, existing danger, which should lead us to 
 take those steps so dangerous in my concep- 
 tion. Disorders have arisen in other parts of 
 America, but here, sir, no danger, no insurrec- 
 tion or tumult, has happened ; every thing has 
 been calm and tranquil. But notwithstanding 
 this, we are wandering on the great ocean of
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 2$ 
 
 human affairs. I see no landmark to guide us. 
 We are running we know not whither. Differ- 
 ence in opinion has gone to the degree of in- 
 flammatory resentment, in different parts of the 
 country, which has been occasioned by this 
 perilous innovation. The Federal convention 
 ought to have amended the old system ; for 
 this purpose, they were solely delegated ; the 
 object of their mission extended to no other 
 consideration. You must therefore forgive the 
 solicitation of one unworthy member, to know 
 what danger could have arisen under the pres- 
 ent confederation, and what are the causes of 
 this proposal to change our government.
 
 ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 
 
 OF NEW YORK 
 
 (BORN 1757, DIED 1804). 
 
 ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING THE FEDERAL 
 
 CONSTITUTION CONVENTION OF NEW YORK, 
 
 JUNE 24, 1788. 
 
 I AM persuaded, Mr. Chairman, that I in my 
 turn shall be indulged, in addressing the com- 
 mittee. We all, in equal sincerity, profess to be 
 anxious for the establishment of a republican 
 government, on a safe and solid basis. It is 
 the object of the wishes of every honest man in 
 the United States, and I presume that I shall 
 not be disbelieved, when I declare, that it is an 
 object of all others, the nearest and mos"t dear 
 to my own heart. The means of accomplishing 
 this great purpose become the most important 
 study which can interest mankind. It is our 
 duty to examine all those means with peculiar 
 attention, and to choose the best and most 
 effectual. It is our duty to draw from nature, 
 30
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 31 
 
 from reason, from examples, the best principles 
 of policy, and to pursue and apply them in the 
 formation of our government. We should con- 
 template and compare the systems, which, in 
 this examination, come under our view ; dis- 
 tinguish, with a careful eye, the defects and ex- 
 cellencies of each, and discarding the former, 
 incorporate the latter, as far as circumstances 
 will admit, into our Constitution. If we pursue 
 a different course and neglect this duty, we shall 
 probably disappoint the expectations of our 
 country and of the world. 
 
 In the commencement of a revolution, which 
 received its birth from the usurpations of tyr- 
 anny, nothing was more natural, than that 
 the public mind should be influenced by an ex- 
 treme spirit of jealousy. To resist these en- 
 croachments, and to nourish this spirit, was the 
 great object of all our public and private in- 
 stitutions. The zeal for liberty became pre- 
 dominant and excessive. In forming our con- 
 federation, this passion alone seemed to actuate 
 us, and we appear to have had no other view 
 than to secure ourselves from despotism. The 
 object certainly was a valuable one, and de- 
 served our utmost attention. But, sir, there is 
 another object equally important, and which our
 
 32 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 enthusiasm rendered us little capable of regard- 
 ing : I mean a principle of strength and stability 
 in the organization of our government, and 
 vigor in its operations. This purpose can 
 never be accomplished but by the establish- 
 ment of some select body, formed peculiarly 
 upon this principle. There are few positions 
 more demonstrable than that there should be in 
 every republic, some permanent body to cor- 
 rect the prejudices, check the intemperate pas- 
 sions, and regulate the fluctuations of a popu- 
 lar assembly. It is evident, that a body insti- 
 tuted for these purposes, must be so formed 
 as to exclude as much as possible from its own 
 character, those infirmities and that mutability 
 which it is designed to remedy. It is therefore 
 necessary that it should be small, that it should 
 hold its authority during a considerable period, 
 and that it should have such an independence 
 in the exercise of its powers, as will divest it as 
 much as possible of local prejudices. It should 
 be so formed as to be the centre of political 
 knowledge, to pursue always a steady line of 
 conduct, and to reduce every irregular pro- 
 pensity to system. Without this establishment, 
 we may make experiments without end, but 
 shall never have an efficient government.
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 33 
 
 It is an unqestionable truth, that the body of 
 the people in every country desire sincerely its 
 prosperity ; but it is equally unquestionable, 
 that they do not possess the discernment and 
 stability necessary for systematic government. 
 To deny that they are frequently led into the 
 grossest errors by misinformation and passion, 
 would be a flattery which their own good 
 sense must despise. That branch of adminis- 
 stration especially, which involves our political 
 relations with foreign states, a community will 
 ever be incompetent to. These truths are not 
 often held up in public assemblies: but they 
 cannot be unknown to any who hear me. From 
 these principles it follows, that there ought to 
 be two distinct bodies in our government : one, 
 which shall be immediately constituted by and 
 peculiarly represent the people, and possess all 
 the popular features ; another, formed upon the 
 principle, and for the purposes, before ex- 
 plained. Such considerations as these induced 
 the convention who formed your State con- 
 stitution, to institute a Senate upon the present 
 plan. The history of ancient and modern re- 
 publics had taught them, that many of the 
 evils which these republics had suffered, arose 
 from the want of a certain balance and mutual
 
 34 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 control indispensable to a wise administration ; 
 they were convinced that popular assemblies 
 are frequently misguided by ignorance, by sud- 
 den impulses, and the intrigues of ambitious 
 men ; and that some firm barrier against these 
 operations was necessary ; they, therefore, in- 
 stituted your Senate, and the benefits we have 
 experienced have fully justified their concep- 
 tions. * * * 
 
 Gentlemen, in their reasoning, have placed 
 the interests of the several States, and those of 
 the United States in contrast ; this is not a fair 
 view of the subject ; they must necessarily be 
 involved in each other. What we apprehend 
 is, that some sinister prejudice, or some pre- 
 vailing passion, may assume the form of a gen- 
 uine interest. The influence of these is as 
 powerful as the most permanent conviction of 
 the public good ; and against this influence we 
 ought to provide. The local interests of a 
 State ought in every case to give way to the 
 interests of the Union ; for when a sacrifice of 
 one or the other is necessary, the former be- 
 comes only an apparent, partial interest, and 
 should yield, on the principle that the small 
 good ought never to oppose the great one. 
 When you assemble from your several counties
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 35 
 
 in the Legislature, were every member to be 
 guided only by the apparent interests of his 
 county, government would be impracticable. 
 There must be a perpetual accommodation and 
 sacrifice of local advantages to general expedi- 
 ency ; but the spirit of a mere popular assembly 
 would rarely be actuated by this important 
 principle. It is therefore absolutely necessary 
 that the Senate should be so formed, as to be 
 unbiassed by false conceptions of the real inter- 
 ests, or undue attachment to the apparent 
 good of their several States. 
 
 Gentlemen indulge too many unreasonable 
 apprehensions of danger to the State govern- 
 ments ; they seem to suppose that the moment 
 you put men into a national council, they be- 
 come corrupt and tyrannical, and lose all their 
 affection for their fellow-citizens. But can we 
 imagine that the Senators will ever be so insen- 
 sible of their own advantage, as to sacrifice the 
 genuine interest of their constituents? The 
 State governments are essentially necessary to 
 the form and spirit of the general system. As 
 long, therefore, as Congress has a full convic- 
 tion of this necessity, they must, even upon 
 principles purely national, have as firm an 
 attachment to the one as to the other. This
 
 36 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 conviction can never leave them, unless they 
 become madmen. While the constitution con- 
 tinues to be read, and its principle known, the 
 States must, by every rational man, be consid- 
 ered as essential, component parts of The Union ; 
 and therefore the idea of sacrificing the former 
 to the latter is wholly inadmissible. 
 
 The objectors do not advert to the natural 
 strength and resources of State governments, 
 which will ever give them an important superi- 
 ority over the general government. If we 
 compare the nature of their different powers, 
 or the means of popular influence which each 
 possesses, we shall find the advantage entirely 
 on the side of the States. This consideration, 
 important as it is, seems to have been little 
 attended to. The aggregate number of repre- 
 sentatives throughout the States may be two 
 thousand. Their personal influence will, there- 
 fore, be proportionably more extensive than 
 that of one or two hundred men in Congress. 
 The State establishments of civil and military 
 officers of every description, infinitely surpas- 
 sing in number any possible correspondent 
 establishments in the general government, will 
 create such an extent and complication of 
 attachments, as will ever secure the predilection
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 37 
 
 and support of the people. Whenever, there- 
 fore, Congress shall meditate any infringement 
 of the State constitutions, the great body of the 
 people will naturally take part with their do- 
 mestic representatives. Can the general gov- 
 ernment withstand such an united opposition ? 
 Will the people suffer themselves to be stripped 
 of their privileges ? Will they suffer their Leg- 
 islatures to be reduced to a shadow and a name? 
 The idea is shocking to common-sense. 
 
 From the circumstances already explained, 
 and many others which might be mentioned, 
 results a complicated, irresistible check, which 
 must ever support the existence and impor- 
 tance of the State governments. The danger, 
 if any exists, flows from an opposite source. 
 The probable evil is, that the general govern- 
 ment will be too dependent on the State Legis- 
 latures, too much governed by their prejudices, 
 and too obsequious to their humors; that the 
 States, with every power in their hands, will 
 make encroachments on the national authority, 
 till the Union is weakened and dissolved. 
 
 Every member must have been struck with 
 an observation of a gentleman from Albany. 
 Do what you will, says he, local predjudices 
 and opinions will go into the government.
 
 38 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 What ! shall we then form a constitution to 
 cherish and strengthen these prejudices? Shall 
 we confirm the distemper, instead of remedying 
 it. It is undeniable that there must be a control 
 somewhere. Either the general interest is to 
 control the particular interests, or the contrary. 
 If the former, then certainly the government 
 ought to be so framed, as to render the power 
 of control efficient to all intents and purposes ; 
 if the latter, a striking absurdity follows ; the 
 controlling powers must be as numerous as the 
 varying interests, and the operations of the 
 government must therefore cease ; for the mo- 
 ment you accommodate these different interests, 
 which is the only way to set the government in 
 motion, you establish a controlling power. 
 Thus, whatever constitutional provisions are 
 made to the contrary, every government will be 
 at last driven to the necessity of subjecting the 
 partial to the universal interest. The gentle- 
 men ought always, in their reasoning, to dis- 
 tinguish between the real, genuine good of a 
 State, and the opinions and prejudices which 
 may prevail respecting it ; the latter may be 
 opposed to the general good, and consequently 
 ought to be sacrificed ; the former is so in- 
 volved in it, that it never can be sacrificed.
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 39 
 
 There are certain social principles in human 
 nature from which we may draw the most solid 
 conclusions with respect to the conduct of in- 
 dividuals and of communities. We love our 
 families more than our neighbors ; we love our 
 neighbors more than our countrymen in gen- 
 eral. The human affections, like the solar heat, 
 lose their intensity as they depart from the 
 centre, and become languid in proportion to 
 the expansion of the circle on which they act. 
 On these principles, the attachment of the indi- 
 vidual will be first and forever secured by the 
 State governments ; they will be a mutual pro- 
 tection and support. Another source of influ- 
 ence, which has already been pointed out, is 
 the various official connections in the States. 
 Gentlemen endeavor to evade the force of this 
 by saying that these offices will be insignificant. 
 This is by no means true. The State officers 
 will ever be important, because they are neces- 
 sary and useful. Their powers are such as are 
 extremely interesting to the people ; such as 
 affect their property, their liberty, and life. 
 What is more important than the administra- 
 tion of justice and the execution of the civil 
 and criminal laws ? Can the State govern- 
 ments become insignificant while they have
 
 40 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 the power of raising money independently and 
 without control ? If they are really useful ; if 
 they are calculated to promote the essential 
 interests of the people ; they must have their 
 confidence and support. The States can never 
 lose their powers till the whole people of 
 America are robbed of their liberties. These 
 must go together; they must support each 
 other, or meet one common fate. On the gen- 
 tleman's principle, we may safely trust the 
 State governments, though we have no means 
 of resisting them ; but we cannot confide in 
 the national government, though we have an 
 effectual constitutional guard against every en- 
 croachment. This is the essence of their argu- 
 ment, and it is false and fallacious beyond con- 
 ception. 
 
 With regard to the jurisdiction of the two 
 governments, I shall certainly admit that the 
 Constitution ought to be so formed as not to 
 prevent the States from providing for their 
 own existence; and I maintain that it is so 
 formed ; and that their power of providing for 
 themselves is sufficiently established. This is 
 conceded by one gentleman, and in the next 
 breath the concession is retracted. He says 
 Congress has but one exclusive right in taxa-
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 4! 
 
 tion that of duties on imports ; certainly, 
 then, their other powers are only concurrent. 
 But to take off the force of this obvious conclu- 
 sion, he immediately says that the laws of the 
 United States are supreme; and that where 
 there is one supreme there cannot be a concur- 
 rent authority ; and further, that where the 
 laws of the Union are supreme, those of the 
 States must be subordinate ; because there can- 
 not be two supremes. This is curious sophistry. 
 That two supreme powers cannot act together 
 is false. They are inconsistent only when they 
 are aimed at each other or at one indivisible 
 object. The laws of the United States are su- 
 preme, as to all their proper, constitutional ob- 
 jects; the laws of the States are supreme in 
 the same way. These supreme laws may act 
 on different objects without clashing ; or they 
 may operate on different parts of the same 
 common object with perfect harmony. Sup- 
 pose both governments should lay a tax of a 
 penny on a certain article ; has not each an in- 
 dependent and uncontrollable power to collect 
 its own tax? The meaning of the maxim, 
 there cannot be two supremes, is simply this 
 two powers cannot be supreme over each other. 
 This meaning is entirely perverted by the gen-
 
 42 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 tlemen. But, it is said, disputes between col- 
 lectors are to be referred to the federal courts. 
 This is again wandering in the field of conjec- 
 ture. But suppose the fact is certain ; is it not 
 to be presumed that they will express the true 
 meaning of the Constitution and the laws ? 
 Will they not be bound to consider the con- 
 current jurisdiction; to declare that both the 
 taxes shall have equal operation ; that both 
 the powers, in that respect, are sovereign and 
 co-extensive? If they transgress their duty, 
 we are to hope that they will be punished. 
 Sir, we can reason from probabilities alone. 
 When we leave common-sense, and give our- 
 selves up to conjecture, there can be no cer- 
 tainty, no security in our reasonings. 
 
 I imagine I have stated to the committee 
 abundant reasons to prove the entire safety of 
 the State governments and of the people. I 
 would go into a more minute consideration of 
 the nature of the concurrent jurisdiction, and 
 the operation of the laws in relation to reve- 
 nue ; but at present I feel too much indisposed 
 to proceed. I shall, with leave of the commit- 
 tee, improve another opportunity of expressing 
 to them more fully my ideas on this point. I 
 wish the committee to remember that the Con-
 
 THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 43 
 
 stitution under examination is framed upon 
 truly republican principles; and that, as it is 
 expressly designed to provide for the common 
 protection and the general welfare of the 
 United States, it must be utterly repugnant to 
 this Constitution to subvert the State govern- 
 ments or oppress the people.
 
 GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 (BORN 1732, DIED 1799). 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS AS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 
 STATES. NEW YORK CITY, APRIL 30, 1789. 
 
 Fellow-citizens of the Senate, and of the 
 House of Representatives. Among the vicissi- 
 tudes incident to life, no event could have filled 
 me with greater anxieties, than that of which 
 the notification was transmitted by your order, 
 and received on the fourteenth day of the present 
 month. On the one hand, I was summoned by 
 my country, whose voice I can never hear but 
 with veneration and love, from a retreat which 
 I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and 
 in my flattering hopes with an immutable de- 
 cision as the asylum of my declining years ; a 
 retreat which was rendered every day more 
 necessary, as well as more dear to me, by the 
 addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent 
 interruptions in my health to the gradual waste 
 44
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 45 
 
 committed on it by time. On the other hand, 
 the magnitude and difficulty of the trust, to 
 which the voice of my country called me, be- 
 ing sufficient to waken in the wisest and most 
 experienced of her citizens a distrustful scrutiny 
 into his own qualifications, could not but over- 
 whelm with despondence one, who, inheriting 
 inferior endowments from nature, and unprac- 
 tised in the duties of civil administration, ought 
 to be peculiarly conscious of his own defi- 
 ciencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare 
 aver, is, that it has been my faithful study to 
 collect my duty from a just appreciation of 
 every circumstance by which it might be af- 
 fected. All I dare hope is, that if, in executing 
 this task, I have been too much swayed by a 
 grateful remembrance of former instances, or 
 by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent 
 proof of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, 
 and have thence too little consulted my inca- 
 pacity as well as disinclination for the weighty 
 and untried cares before me, my error will be 
 palliated by the motives which misled me, and 
 its consequences be judged by my country, 
 with some share of the partiality in which they 
 originated. 
 
 Such being the impression under which I
 
 46 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 have, in obedience to the public summons, re- 
 paired to the present station, it would be pecul- 
 iarly improper to omit in this first official act, 
 my fervent supplications to that Almighty Be- 
 ing who rules over the universe who presides 
 in the councils of nations and whose provi- 
 dential aids can supply every human defect, 
 that his benediction may consecrate to the lib- 
 erties and happiness of the people of the 
 United States, a government instituted by 
 themselves for these essential purposes ; and 
 may enable every instrument, employed in its 
 administration, to execute with success, the 
 functions allotted to his charge. In tendering 
 this homage to the great author of every pub- 
 lic and private good, I assure myself that it 
 expresses your sentiments not less than my 
 own, nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, 
 less than either. No people can be bound to 
 acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, 
 which conducts the affairs of men, more than 
 the people of the United States. Every step 
 by which they have advanced to the character 
 of an independent nation, seems to have been 
 distinguished by some token of providential 
 agency ; and in the important revolution just 
 accomplished in the system of their united gov-
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 47 
 
 ernment, the tranquil deliberations and vol- 
 untary consent of so many distinct communi- 
 ties, from which the event has resulted, cannot 
 be compared with the means by which most 
 governments have been established, without 
 some return of pious gratitude along with an 
 humble anticipation of the future blessings 
 which the past seems to presage. These reflec- 
 tions, arising out of the present crisis, have 
 forced themselves too strongly on my mind to 
 be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, 
 in thinking that there are none under the in- 
 fluence of which the proceedings of a new and 
 free government can more auspiciouly com- 
 mence. 
 
 By the article establishing the executive de- 
 partment, it is made the duty of the President 
 "to recommend to your consideration, such 
 measures as he shall judge necessary and ex- 
 pedient." The circumstances under which I 
 now meet you will acquit me from entering into 
 that subject, further than to refer to the great 
 constitutional charter under which you are 
 assembled ; and which, in defining your powers, 
 designates the objects to which your attention 
 is to be given. It will be more consistent with 
 those circumstances, and far more congenial
 
 48 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 with the feelings which actuate me, to substi- 
 tute in place of a recommendation of particular 
 measures the tribute that is due to the talents, 
 the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn 
 the characters selected to devise and adopt 
 them. In these honorable qualifications, I be- 
 hold the surest pledges, that as, on one side, no 
 local prejudices or attachments, no separate 
 views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the 
 comprehensive and equal eye which ought to 
 watch over this great assemblage of communi- 
 ties and interests ; so on another, that the 
 foundations of our national policy will be laid 
 in the pure and immutable principles of private 
 morality ; and the preeminence of free govern- 
 ment be exemplified by all the attributes which 
 can win the affections of its citizens, and com- 
 mand the respect of the world. I dwell on this 
 prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent 
 love for my country can inspire ; since there is 
 no truth more thoroughly established, than 
 that there exists in the economy and course of 
 nature, an indissoluble union between virtue 
 and happiness, between duty and advantage, 
 between the genuine maxims of an honest and 
 magnanimous policy and the solid rewards of 
 public prosperity and felicity ; since we ought
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 49 
 
 to be no less persuaded, that the propitious 
 smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a 
 nation that disregards the eternal rules of order 
 and right, which Heaven itself has ordained ; 
 and since the preservation of the sacred fire of 
 liberty and the destiny of the republican model 
 of government are justly considered as deeply, 
 perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment 
 entrusted to the hands of the American people. 
 Besides the ordinary objects submitted to 
 your care, it will remain with your judgment to 
 decide, how far an exercise of the occasional 
 power delegated by the fifth article of the 
 Constitution is rendered expedient at the 
 present juncture by the nature of objections 
 which have been urged against the system, or 
 by the degree of inquietude which has given 
 birth to them. Instead of undertaking particu- 
 lar recommendations on this subject, in which 
 I could be guided by no lights derived from 
 official opportunities, I shall again give way to 
 my entire confidence in your discernment and 
 pursuit of the public good ; for I assure myself 
 that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration 
 which might endanger the benefits of an united 
 and effective government, or which ought to 
 await the future lessons of experience ; a rev-
 
 50 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
 
 erence for the characteristic rights of freemen, 
 and a regard for the public harmony, will suf- 
 ficiently influence your deliberations on the 
 question how far the former may be more im- 
 pregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and 
 advantageously promoted. 
 
 To the preceding observations I have one 
 to add, which will be most properly addressed 
 to the House of Representatives. It concerns 
 myself, and will therefore be as brief as possi- 
 ble. When I was first honored with a call into 
 the service of my country, then on the eve of 
 an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light 
 in which I contemplated my duty required that 
 I should renounce every pecuniary compensa- 
 tion. From this resolution I have in no in- 
 stance departed. And being still under the 
 impressions which produced it I must decline, 
 as inapplicable to myself, any share in the per- 
 sonal emoluments, which may be indispensably 
 included in a permanent provision for the ex- 
 ecutive department ; and must accordingly 
 pray that the pecuniary estimates for the 
 station in which I am placed, may, during 
 my continuance in it, be limited to such actual 
 expenditures as the public good may be thought 
 to require.
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 5 1 
 
 Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, 
 as they have been awakened by the occasion 
 which brings us together, I shall take my 
 present leave ; but not without resorting once 
 more to the benign Parent of the human race, 
 in humble supplication, that since He has been 
 pleased to favor the American people with op- 
 portunities for deliberating in perfect tranquil- 
 lity, and dispositions for deciding with unparal- 
 leled unanimity on a form of government for 
 the security of their union, and the advance- 
 ment of their happiness ; so His divine bless- 
 ings may be equally conspicuous in the en- 
 larged views, the temperate consultations, and 
 the wise measures on which the success of this 
 government must depend.
 
 II. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 53
 
 II. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL government in the United 
 States began, in its national phase, with the 
 inauguration of Washington, but the experi- 
 ment was for a long time a doubtful one. Of 
 the two parties, the federal and the anti-federal 
 parties, which had faced one another on the 
 question of the adoption of the Constitution, 
 the latter had disappeared. Its conspicuous 
 failure to achieve the fundamental object of 
 its existence, and the evident hopelessnesss of 
 reversing its failure in future, blotted it out of 
 existence. There was left but one party, the 
 federal party; and it, strong as it appeared, 
 was really in almost as precarious a position as 
 its former opponent, because of the very com- 
 pleteness of its success in achieving its funda- 
 mental object. Hamilton and Jefferson, two 
 
 55
 
 $6 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of its representative members, were opposed in 
 almost all the political instincts of their natures ; 
 the former chose the restraints of strong gov- 
 ernment as instinctively as the latter clung to 
 individualism. They had been accidentally 
 united for the time in desiring the adoption of 
 the Constitution, though Hamilton considered 
 it only a temporary shift for something stronger, 
 while Jefferson wished for a bill of rights to 
 weaken the force of some of its implications. 
 Now that the Constitution was ratified, what tie 
 was there to hold these two to any united ac- 
 tion for the future ? Nothing but a shadow 
 the name of a party not yet two years old. As 
 soon, therefore, as the federal party fairly en- 
 tered upon a secure tenure of power, the diver- 
 gent instincts of the two classes represented by 
 Hamilton and Jefferson began to show them- 
 selves more distinctly until there was no longer 
 any pretence of party unity, and the democratic 
 (or republican) party assumed its place, in 
 1792-3, as the recognized opponent of the party 
 in power. It would be beside the purpose to
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 57 
 
 attempt to enumerate the points in which the 
 natural antagonism of the federalists and 
 the republicans came to the surface during the 
 decade of contest which ended in the downfall 
 of the federal party in 1800-1. In all of them, 
 in the struggles over the establishment of the 
 Bank of the United States and the assumption 
 of the State debts, in the respective sympathy 
 for France and Great Britain, in the strong 
 federalist legislation forced through during the 
 war feeling against France in 1798, the con- 
 trolling sympathy of the republicans for in- 
 dividualism and of the federalists for a strong 
 national government is constantly visible, if 
 looked for. The difficulty is that these per- 
 manent features are often so obscured by the 
 temporary media in which they appear that the 
 republicans are likely to be taken as a merely 
 State-rights party, and the federalists as a mere- 
 ly commercial party. 
 
 To adopt either of these notions would be to 
 take a very erroneous idea of American politi- 
 cal history. The whole policy of the republi-
 
 58 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 cans was to forward the freedom of the 
 individual; their leader seems to have made 
 all other points subordinate to this. There is 
 hardly any point in which the action of the in- 
 dividual American has been freed from govern- 
 mental restraints, from ecclesiastical govern- 
 ment, from sumptuary laws, from restrictions 
 on suffrage, from restrictions on commerce, pro- 
 duction, and exchange, for which he is not 
 indebted in some measure to the work and 
 teaching of Jefferson between the years of 
 1790 and 1800. He and his party found the 
 States in existence, understood well that they 
 were convenient shields for the individual 
 against the possible powers of the new federal 
 government for evil, and made use of them. 
 The State sovereignty of Jefferson was the 
 product of individualism ; that of Calhoun was 
 the product of sectionalism. 
 
 On the other hand, if Jeff ersonian democracy 
 was the representative of all the individualistic 
 tendencies of the later science of political econ- 
 omy, Hamiltonian federalism represented the
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 59 
 
 > 
 
 necessary corrective force of law. It was in 
 many respects a strong survival of colonialism. 
 Together with some of the evil features of 
 colonialism, its imperative demands for sub- 
 mission to class government, its respect for the 
 interests and desires of the few, and its con- 
 tempt for those of the many, it had brought 
 into American constitutional life a very high 
 ratio of that respect for law which alone can 
 render the happiness and usefulness of the in- 
 dividual a permanent and secure possession. It 
 was impossible for federalism to resist the in- 
 dividualistic tendency of the country for any 
 length of time ; it is the monument of the 
 party that it secured, before it fell, abiding 
 guaranties for the security of the individual 
 under freedom. 
 
 The genius of the federalists was largely 
 practical. It was shown in their masterly or- 
 ganization of the federal government when it 
 was first entrusted to their hands, an organiza- 
 tion which has since been rather developed than 
 disturbed in any of its parts. But the details
 
 60 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 of the work absorbed the attention of the 
 leaders so completely that it would be impos- 
 sible to fix on any public address as entirely 
 representative of the party. Fisher Ames' 
 speech on the Jay treaty, which was considered 
 by the federalists the most effective piece of 
 oratory in their party history, has been taken 
 as a substitute. The question was to the 
 federalists partly of commercial and partly of 
 national importance. John Jay had secured 
 the first commercial treaty with Great Britain 
 in 1795. It not only provided for the security 
 of American commerce during the European 
 wars to which Great Britain was a party, and 
 obtained the surrender of the military posts in 
 the present States of Ohio and Michigan; it 
 also gave the United States a standing in the 
 family of nations which it was difficult to claim 
 elsewhere while Great Britain continued to re- 
 fuse to treat on terms of equality. The 
 Senate therefore ratified the treaty, and it was 
 constitutionally complete. The democratic 
 majority in the House of Representatives, ob-
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 6 1 
 
 jecting to the treaty as a surrender of pre- 
 vious engagements with France, and as a fail- 
 ure to secure the rights of individuals against 
 Great Britain, particularly in the matter of im- 
 pressment, raised the point that the House was 
 not bound to vote money for carrying into 
 effect a treaty with which it was seriously dis- 
 satisfied. The reply of Ames is a forcible 
 presentation of both the national and the com- 
 mercial aspects of his party ; it had a very great 
 influence in securing, though by a very narrow 
 majority, the vote of the House in favor of the 
 appropriation. 
 
 There is an equally great difficulty in fixing 
 on any completely representative oration from 
 the republican point of view, and the difficulty 
 is aggravated by the lack of great orators among 
 the republicans. The selection of Nicholas' 
 argument for the repeal of the sedition law 
 has been made for several reasons. It shows 
 the instinctive sympathy of the party for the 
 individual rather than for the government. It 
 shows the force with which this sympathy drove
 
 62 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 the party into a strict construction of the Con- 
 stitution. It seems also to bear the strongest 
 internal indications that it was inspired, if not 
 entirely written, by the great leader of the 
 party, Jefferson. The federalists had used the 
 popular war feeling against France in 1798, not 
 only to press the formation of an army and a 
 navy and the abrogation of the old and trouble- 
 some treaties with France, but to pass the alien 
 and sedition laws as well. The former em- 
 powered the President to expel from the coun- 
 try or imprison any alien whom he should con- 
 sider dangerous to the peace and safety of the 
 United States. The latter forbade, under 
 penalty of fine and imprisonment, the printing 
 or publishing of any " false, scandalous, or 
 malicious writings " calculated to bring the 
 Government, Congress, or the President into 
 disrepute, or to excite against them the hatred 
 of the good people of the United States, or to 
 stir up sedition. It was inevitable that the re- 
 publicans should oppose such laws, and that 
 the people should support them in their oppo-
 
 CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 63 
 
 sition. At the election of 1800, the federal 
 party was overthrown, and the lost ground was 
 never regained. With Jefferson's election to 
 the presidency, began the democratic period 
 of the United States ; but it has always been 
 colored strongly and naturally by the federal 
 bias toward law and order.
 
 FISHER AMES, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 (BORN 1758, DIED 1808.) 
 
 ON THE BRITISH TREATY, HOUSE OF REPRESENTA- 
 TIVES, APRIL 28, 1796. 
 
 IT would be strange, that a subject, which 
 has aroused in turn all the passions of the coun- 
 try, should be discussed without the interfer- 
 ence of any of our own. We are men, and 
 therefore not exempt from those passions ; as 
 citizens and representatives, we feel the inter- 
 ests that must excite them. The hazard of 
 great interests cannot fail to agitate strong pas- 
 sions. We are not disinterested ; it is impossi- 
 ble we should be dispassionate. The warmth 
 of such feelings may becloud the judgment, 
 and, for a time, pervert the understanding. 
 But the public sensibility, and our own, has 
 sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given an 
 animation to the debate. The public attention 
 has been quickened to mark the progress of the 
 64
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 65 
 
 discussion, and its judgment, often hasty and 
 erroneous on first impressions, has become 
 solid and enlightened at last. Our result will, 
 I hope, on that account, be safer and more 
 mature, as well as more accordant with that of 
 the nation. The only constant agents in 
 political affairs are the passions of men. Shall 
 we complain of our nature shall we say that 
 man ought to have been made otherwise ? It 
 is right already, because He, from whom we 
 derive our nature, ordained it so ; and because 
 thus made and thus acting, the cause of 
 truth and the public good is more surely pro- 
 moted. * * * 
 
 The treaty is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It 
 sacrifices the interest, the honor, the indepen- 
 dence of the United States, and the faith of our 
 engagements to France. If we listen to the 
 clamor of party intemperance, the evils are of a 
 number not to be counted, and of a nature not 
 to be borne, even in idea. The language of 
 passion and exaggeration may silence that of 
 sober reason in other places, it has not done it 
 here. The question here is, whether the treaty 
 be really so very fatal as to oblige the nation 
 to break its faith. I admit that such a treaty 
 ought not to be executed. I admit that self-
 
 66 FISHER AMES. 
 
 preservation is the first law of society, as well as 
 of individuals. It would, perhaps, be deemed 
 an abuse of terms to call that a treaty, which 
 violates such a principle. I waive also, for the 
 present, any inquiry, what departments shall 
 represent the nation, and annul the stipulations 
 of a treaty. I content myself with pursuing 
 the inquiry, whether the nature of this com- 
 pact be such as to justify our refusal to carry it 
 into effect. A treaty is the promise of a nation. 
 Now, promises do not always bind him that 
 makes them. But I lay down two rules, which 
 ought to guide us in this case. The treaty 
 must appear to be bad, not merely in the petty 
 details, but in its character, principle, and mass. 
 And in the next place, this ought to be ascer- 
 tained by the decided and general concurrence 
 of the enlightened public. 
 
 I confess there seems to be something very 
 like ridicule thrown over the debate by the dis- 
 cussion of the articles in detail. The unde- 
 cided point is, shall we break our faith ? And 
 while our country and enlightened Europe, 
 await the issue with more than curiosity, we 
 are employed to gather piecemeal, and article 
 by article, from the instrument, a justification 
 for the deed by trivial calculations of commer-
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 67 
 
 cial profit and loss. This is little worthy of the 
 subject, of this body, or of the nation. If the 
 treaty is bad, it will appear to be so in its mass. 
 Evil to a fatal extreme, if that be its tendency, 
 requires no proof ; it brings it. Extremes 
 speak for themselves and make their own law. 
 What if the direct voyage of American ships 
 to Jamaica with horses or lumber, might net 
 one or two per centum more than the present 
 trade to Surinam ; would the proof of the fact 
 avail any thing in so grave a question as the 
 violation of the public engagements ? * * * 
 Why do they complain, that the West Indies 
 are not laid open ? Why do they lament, that 
 any restriction is stipulated on the commerce 
 of the East Indies? Why do they pretend, 
 that if they reject this, and insist upon more, 
 more will be accomplished ? Let us be explicit 
 more would not satisfy. If all was granted, 
 would not a treaty of amity with Great Britain 
 still be obnoxious? Have we not this instant 
 heard it urged against our envoy, that he was 
 not ardent enough in his hatred of Great 
 Britain ? A treaty of amity is condemned be- 
 cause it was not made by a foe, and in the 
 spirit of one. The same gentleman, at the 
 same instant, repeats a very prevailing objec-
 
 68 FISHER AMES. 
 
 tion, that no treaty should be made with the 
 enemy of France. No treaty, exclaim others, 
 should be made with a monarch or a despot ; 
 there will be no naval security while those sea- 
 robbers domineer on the ocean ; their den must 
 be destroyed ; that nation must be extirpated. 
 
 I like this, sir, because it is sincerity. With 
 feelings such as these, we do not pant for 
 treaties. Such passions seek nothing, and will 
 be content with nothing, but the destruction of 
 their object. If a treaty left King George his 
 island, it would not answer; not if he stipulated 
 to pay rent for it. It has been said, the world 
 ought to rejoice if Britain was sunk in the sea ; if 
 where there are now men and wealth and laws 
 and liberty, there was no more than a sand bank 
 for sea monsters to fatten on ; a space for the 
 storms of the ocean to mingle in conflict. * * * 
 
 What is patriotism ? Is it a narrow affection 
 for the spot where a man was born ? Are the 
 very clods where we tread entitled to this 
 ardent preference because they are greener? 
 No, sir, this is not the character of the virtue, 
 and it soars higher for its object. It is an 
 extended self-love, mingling with all the enjoy- 
 ments of life, and twisting itself with the minu- 
 test filaments of the heart. It is thus we obey
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 69 
 
 the laws of society, because they are the laws 
 of virtue. In their authority we see, not the 
 array of force and terror, but the venerable 
 image of our country's honor. Every good 
 citizen makes that honor his own, and cherishes 
 it not only as precious, but as sacred. He is 
 willing to risk his life in its defence, and is con- 
 scious that he gains protection while he gives 
 it. For, what rights of a citizen will be deemed 
 inviolable when a state renounces the principles 
 that constitute their security? Or if his life 
 should not be invaded, what would its enjoy- 
 ments be in a country odious in the eyes of 
 strangers and dishonored in his own ? Could 
 he look with affection and veneration to such 
 a country as his parent ? The sense of having 
 one would die within him ; he would blush for 
 his patriotism, if he retained any, and justly, 
 for it would be a vice. He would be a banished 
 man in his native land. I see no exception to 
 the respect that is paid among nations to the 
 law of good faith. If there are cases in this 
 enlightened period when it is violated, there 
 are none when it is decried. It is the philoso- 
 phy of politics, the religion of governments. 
 It is observed by barbarians a whiff of tobacco 
 smoke, or a string of beads, gives not merely
 
 7O FISHER AMES. 
 
 binding force but sanctity to treaties. Even 
 in Algiers, a truce may be bought for money, 
 but when ratified, even Algiers is too wise, or 
 too just, to disown and annul its obligation. 
 Thus we see, neither the ignorance of savages, 
 nor the principles of an association for piracy 
 and rapine, permit a nation to despise its 
 engagements. If, sir, there could be a resurrec- 
 tion from the foot of the gallows, if the victims 
 of justice could live again, collect together and 
 form a society, they would, however loath, 
 soon find themselves obliged to make justice, 
 that justice under which they fell, the funda- 
 mental law of their state. They would per- 
 ceive, it was their interest to make others 
 respect, and they would therefore soon pay 
 some respect themselves, to the obligations of 
 good faith. 
 
 It is painful, I hope it is superfluous, to make 
 even the supposition, that America should fur- 
 nish the occasion of this opprobrium. No, let 
 me not even imagine, that a republican govern- 
 ment, sprung, as our own is, from a people 
 enlightened and uncorrupted, a government 
 whose origin is right, and whose daily discipline 
 is duty, can, upon solemn debate, make its 
 option to be faithless can dare to act what
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 7 1 
 
 despots dare not avow, what our own example 
 evinces, the states of Barbary are unsuspected 
 of. No, let me rather make the supposition, 
 that Great Britain refuses to execute the treaty, 
 after we have done every thing to carry it into 
 effect. Is there any language of reproach pun- 
 gent enough to express your commentary on 
 the fact ? What would you say, or rather what 
 would you not say ? Would you not tell them, 
 wherever an Englishman might travel, shame 
 would stick to him he would disown his coun- 
 try. You would exclaim, England, proud of 
 your wealth, and arrogant in the possession of 
 power blush for these distinctions, which be- 
 come the vehicles of your dishonor. Such a 
 nation might truly say to corruption, thou art 
 my father, and to the worm, thou art my 
 mother and my sister. We should say of such a 
 race of men, their name is a heavier burden 
 than their debt. * * * 
 
 The refusal of the posts (inevitable if we 
 reject the treaty) is a measure too decisive in 
 its nature to be neutral in its consequences. 
 From great causes we are to look for great 
 effects. A plain and obvious one will be, the 
 price of the Western lands will fall. Settlers 
 will not choose to fix their habitation on a field
 
 72 FISHER AMES. 
 
 of battle. Those who talk so much of the 
 interest of the United States, should calculate 
 how deeply it will be affected by rejecting the 
 treaty ; how vast a tract of wild land will 
 almost cease to be property. This loss, let it 
 be observed, will fall upon a fund expressly 
 devoted to sink the national debt. What then 
 are we called upon to do? However the form 
 of the vote and the protestations of many may 
 disguise the proceeding, our resolution is in 
 substance, and it deserves to wear the title of a 
 resolution to prevent the sale of the Western 
 lands and the discharge of the public debt. 
 
 Will the tendency to Indian hostilities be 
 contested by any one ? Experience gives the 
 answer. The frontiers were scourged with war 
 till the negotiation with Great Britain was far 
 advanced, and then the state of hostility ceased. 
 Perhaps the public agents of both nations are 
 innocent of fomenting the Indian war, and per- 
 haps they are not. We ought not, however, to 
 expect that neighboring nations, highly irritated 
 against each other, will neglect the friendship 
 of the savages ; the traders will gain an influence 
 and will abuse it ; and who is ignorant that their 
 passions are easily raised, and hardly restrained 
 from violence ? Their situation will oblige them 

 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 73 
 
 to choose between this country and Great 
 Britain, in case the treaty should be rejected. 
 They will not be our friends, and at the same 
 time the friends of our enemies. 
 
 But am I reduced to the necesity of proving 
 this point ? Certainly the very men who charged 
 the Indian war on the detention of the posts, 
 will call for no other proof than the recital of 
 their own speeches. It is remembered with 
 what emphasis, with what acrimony, they ex- 
 patiated on the burden of taxes, and the drain 
 of blood and treasure into the Western country, 
 in consequence of Britain's holding the posts. 
 Until the posts are restored, they exclaimed, 
 the treasury and the frontiers must bleed. 
 
 If any, against all these proofs, should main- 
 tain that the peace with the Indians will be 
 stable without the posts, to them I urge another 
 reply. From arguments calculated to produce 
 conviction, I will appeal directly to the hearts 
 of those who hear me, and ask, whether it is not 
 already planted there ? I resort especially to 
 the convictions of the Western gentlemen, 
 whether supposing no posts and no treaty, the 
 settlers will remain in security ? Can they take 
 it upon them to say, that an Indian peace, under 
 these circumstances, will prove firm ? No, sir,
 
 74 FISHER AMES. 
 
 it will not be peace, but a sword ; it will be no 
 better than a lure to draw victims within the 
 reach of the tomahawk. 
 
 On this theme my emotions are unutterable. 
 If I could find words for them, if my powers 
 bore any proportion to my zeal, I would swell 
 my voice to such a note of remonstrance, it 
 should reach every log-house beyond the moun- 
 tains. I would say to the inhabitants, wake 
 from your false security; your cruel dangers, 
 your more cruel apprehensions are soon to be 
 renewed ; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be 
 torn open again ; in the daytime, your path 
 through the woods will be ambushed ; the dark- 
 ness of midnight will glitter with the blaze of 
 your dwellings. You are a father the blood 
 of your sons shall fatten your cornfield ; you are 
 a mother the war-whoop shall wake the sleep 
 of the cradle. 
 
 On this subject you need not suspect any 
 deception on your feelings. It is a spectacle of 
 horror, which cannot be overdrawn. If you 
 have -nature in your hearts, it will speak a 
 language, compared with which all I have said 
 or can say will be poor and frigid. 
 
 Will it be whispered that the treaty has 
 made me a new champion for the protection of
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 7$ 
 
 the frontiers ? It is known that my voice as 
 well as vote have been uniformly given in con- 
 formity with the ideas I have expressed. Pro- 
 tection is the right of the frontiers ; it is our 
 duty to give it. 
 
 Who will accuse me of wandering out of the 
 subject ? Who will say that I exaggerate the 
 tendencies of our measures? Will any one 
 answer by a sneer, that all this is idle preaching? 
 Will any one deny, that we are bound, and I 
 would hope to good purpose, by the most 
 solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give ? 
 Are despots alone to be reproached for unfeel- 
 ing indifference to the tears and blood of their 
 subjects ? Have the principles on which you 
 ground the reproach upon cabinets and kings 
 no practical influence, no binding force ? Are 
 they merely themes of idle declamation intro- 
 duced to decorate the morality of a newspaper 
 essay, or to furnish petty topics of harangue 
 from the windows of that state-house ? I trust 
 it is neither too presumptuous nor too late to 
 ask. Can you put the dearest interest of society 
 at risk without guilt and without remorse. 
 
 It is vain to offer as an excuse, that public 
 men are not to be reproached for the evils 
 that may happen to ensue from their measures.
 
 76 FISHER AMES. 
 
 This is very true where they are unforeseen or 
 inevitable. Those I have depicted are not un- 
 foreseen ; they are so far from inevitable, we are 
 going to bring them into being by our vote. 
 We choose the consequences, and become as 
 justly answerable for them as for the measures 
 that we know will produce them. 
 
 By rejecting the posts we light the savage 
 fires we bind the victims. This day we un- 
 dertake to render account to the widows and 
 orphans whom our decision will make, to the 
 wretches that will be roasted at the stake, to 
 our country, and I do not deem it too serious 
 to say, to conscience and to God. We are an- 
 swerable, and if duty be any thing more than a 
 word of imposture, if conscience be not a bug- 
 bear, we are preparing to make ourselves as 
 wretched as our country. 
 
 There is no mistake in this case there can 
 be none. Experience has already been the 
 prophet of events, and the cries of future vic- 
 tims have already reached us. The Western in- 
 habitants are not a silent and uncomplaining 
 sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from 
 the shade of their wilderness. It exclaims that, 
 while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, 
 the other grasps a tomahawk. It summons
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 77 
 
 our imagination to the scenes that will open. 
 It is no great effort of the imagination to con- 
 ceive that events so near are already begun. I 
 can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage 
 vengeance, and the shrieks of torture. Already 
 they seem to sigh in the west wind already 
 they mingle with every echo from the moun- 
 tains. 
 
 It is not the part of prudence to be inatten- 
 tive to the tendencies of measures. Where 
 there is any ground to fear that these will prove 
 pernicious, wisdom and duty forbid that we 
 should underrate them. If we reject the treaty, 
 will our peace be as safe as if we executed it 
 with good faith ? I do honor to the intrepid 
 spirits of those who say it will. It was formerly 
 understood to constitute the excellence of a 
 man's faith to believe without evidence and 
 against it. 
 
 But, as opinions on this article are changed, 
 and we are called to act for our country, it be- 
 comes us to explore the dangers that will attend 
 its peace, and to avoid them if we can. * * * 
 
 Is there any thing in the prospect of the in- 
 terior state of the country to encourage us to 
 aggravate the dangers of a war ? Would not 
 the shock of that evil produce another, and
 
 78 FISHER AMES. 
 
 shake down the feeble and then unbraced 
 structure of our government ? Is this a 
 chimera ? Is it going off the ground of matter 
 of fact to say, the rejection of the appropria- 
 tion proceeds upon the doctrine of a civil war 
 of the departments ? Two branches have rati- 
 fied a treaty, and we are going to set it aside. 
 How is this disorder in the machine to be rec- 
 tified ? While it exists its movements must 
 stop, and when we talk of a remedy, is that any 
 other than the formidable one of a revolution- 
 ary one of the people ? And is this, in the 
 judgment even of my opposers, to execute, to 
 preserve the constitution and the public order ? 
 Is this the state of hazard, if not of convulsion, 
 which they can have the courage to contem- 
 plate and to brave, or beyond which their pene- 
 tration can reach and see the issue? They 
 seem to believe, and they act as if they be- 
 lieved, that our union, our peace, our liberty, 
 are invulnerable and immortal as if our happy 
 state was not to be disturbed by our dissen- 
 tions, and that we are not capable of falling 
 from it by our unworthiness. Some of them 
 have, no doubt, better nerves and better dis- 
 cernment than mine. They can see the bright 
 aspects and the happy consequences of all this
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. 79 
 
 array of horrors. They can see intestine dis- 
 cords, our government disorganized, our wrongs 
 aggravated, multiplied, and unredressed, peace 
 with dishonor, or war without justice, union, or 
 resources, in "the calm lights of mild phil- 
 osophy." 
 
 But whatever they may anticipate as the 
 next measure of prudence and safety, they have 
 explained nothing to the house. After reject- 
 ing the treaty, what is to be the next step ? 
 They must have foreseen what ought to be 
 done ; they have doubtless resolved what to 
 propose. Why then are they silent ? Dare 
 they not avow their plan of conduct, or do 
 they wait till our progress toward confusion 
 shall guide them in forming it ? 
 
 Let me cheer the mind, weary, no doubt, and 
 ready to despond on this prospect, by present- 
 ing another, which it is yet in our power to re- 
 alize. Is it possible for a real American to 
 look at the prosperity of this country without 
 some desire for its continuance without some 
 respect for the measures which, many will say, 
 produced, and all will confess, have preserved, 
 it ? Will he not feel some dread that a change 
 of system will reverse the scene ? The well- 
 grounded fears of our citizens in 1794 were re-
 
 80 FISHER AMES. 
 
 moved by the treaty, but are not forgotten. 
 Then they deemed war nearly inevitable, and 
 would not this adjustment have been con- 
 sidered, at that day, as a happy escape from 
 the calamity ? The great interest and the 
 general desire of our people, was to enjoy the 
 advantages of neutrality. This instrument, 
 however misrepresented, affords America that 
 inestimable security. The causes of our disputes 
 are either cut up by the roots, or referred to a 
 new negotiation after the end of the European 
 war. This was gaining every thing, because it 
 confirmed our neutrality, by which our citizens 
 are gaining every thing. This alone would 
 justify the engagements of the government. 
 For, when the fiery vapors of the war lowered 
 in the skirts of our horizon, all our wishes were 
 concentred in this one, that we might escape 
 the desolation of the storm. This treaty, like 
 a rainbow on the edge of the cloud, marked to 
 our eyes the space where it was raging, and 
 afforded, at the same time, the sure prognostic 
 of fair weather. If we reject it, the vivid colors 
 will grow pale, it will be a baleful meteor por- 
 tending tempest and war. 
 
 Let us not hesitate, then, to agree to the ap- 
 propriation to carry it into faithful execution.
 
 THE BRITISH TREATY. Si 
 
 Thus we shall save the faith of our nation, se- 
 cure its peace, and diffuse the spirit of confi- 
 dence and enterprise that will augment its 
 prosperity. The progress of wealth and im- 
 provement is wonderful, and, some will think, 
 too rapid. The field for exertion is fruitful and 
 vast, and if peace and good government should 
 be preserved, the acquisitions of our citizens 
 are not so pleasing as the proofs of their in- 
 dustry as the instruments of their future suc- 
 cess. The rewards of exertion go to augment 
 its power. Profit is every hour becoming 
 capital. The vast crop of our neutrality is all 
 seed-wheat, and is sown again to swell, almost 
 beyond calculation, the future harvest of pros- 
 perity. And in this progress, what seems to 
 be fiction is found to fall short of experience. 
 
 I rose to speak under impressions that I 
 would have resisted if I could. Those who see 
 me will believe that the reduced state of my 
 health has unfitted me, almost equally for 
 much exertion of body or mind. Unprepared 
 for debate, by careful reflection in my retire- 
 ment, or by long attention here, I thought the 
 resolution I had taken to sit silent, was im- 
 posed by necesity, and would cost me no effort 
 to maintain. With a mind thus vacant of ideas,
 
 82 FISHER AMES. 
 
 and sinking, as I really am, under a sense of 
 weakness, I imagined the very desire of speak- 
 ing was extinguished by the persuasion that I 
 had nothing to say. Yet, when I come to the 
 moment of deciding the vote, I start back with 
 dread from the edge of the pit into which we 
 are plunging. In my view, even the minutes I 
 have spent in expostulation have their value, 
 because they protract the crisis, and the short 
 period in which alone we may resolve to escape 
 it. 
 
 I have thus been led, by my feelings, to 
 speak more at length than I intended. Yet I 
 have, perhaps, as little personal interest in the 
 event as any one here. There is, I believe, no 
 member who will not think his chance to be 
 a witness of the consequences greater than 
 mine. If, however, the vote shall pass to re- 
 ject, and a spirit should rise, as it will, with the 
 public disorders, to make confusion worse con- 
 founded, even I, slender and almost broken as 
 my hold upon life is, may outlive the govern- 
 ment and constitution of my country.
 
 JOHN NICHOLAS, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 (BORN 1763, DIED 1819.) 
 
 ON THE PROPOSED REPEAL OF THE SEDITION LAW 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEB. 25, 1799. 
 
 MR. CHAIRMAN : 
 
 The Select Committee had very truly stated 
 that only the second and third sections of the 
 act are complaimed of ; that the part of the 
 law which punishes seditious acts is acquiesced 
 in, and that the part which goes to restrain 
 what are called seditious writings is alone the 
 object of the petitions. This part of the law is 
 complained of as being unwarranted by the 
 Constitution, and destructive of the first prin- 
 ciples of republican government. It is always 
 justifiable, in examining the principle of a law, 
 to inquire what other laws can be passed with 
 equal reason, and to impute to it all the mis- 
 chiefs for which it may be used as a precedent. 
 83
 
 84 JOHN NICHOLAS. 
 
 In this case, little inquiry is left for us to make, 
 the arguments in favor of the law carrying us 
 immediately and by inevitable consequence to 
 absolute power over the press. 
 
 It is not pretended that the Constitution has 
 given any express authority, which they claim, 
 for passing this law, and it is claimed only as 
 implied in that clause of the Constitution which 
 says : " Congress shall have power to make all 
 laws which shall be necessary and proper for 
 carrying into execution the foregoing powers, 
 and all other powers vested by this Constitution 
 in the Government of the United States, or in 
 any department or officer thereof." It is clear 
 that this clause was intended to be merely an 
 auxiliary to the powers specially enumerated in 
 the Constitution ; and it must, therefore, be so 
 construed as to aid them, and at the same time 
 to leave the boundaries between the General 
 Government and the State governments un- 
 touched. The argument by which the Select 
 Committee have endeavored to establish the 
 authority of Congress over the press is the fol- 
 lowing : " Congress has power to punish sedi- 
 tious combinations to resist the laws, and there- 
 fore Congress must have the power to punish 
 false, scandalous, and malicious writings ; be-
 
 THE SEDITION LA W. 85 
 
 cause such writings render the Administration 
 odious and contemptible among the people, 
 and by doing so have a tendency to produce 
 opposition to the laws." To make it support 
 the construction of the committee, it should 
 say that " Congress shall have power over all 
 acts which are likely to produce acts which 
 hinder the execution of," etc. Our construction 
 confines the power of Congress to such acts as 
 immediately interfere with the execution of the 
 enumerated powers of Congress, because the 
 power can only be necessary as well as proper 
 when the acts would really hinder the execu- 
 tion. The construction of the committee ex- 
 tends.the power of Congress to all acts which 
 have a relation, ever so many degrees removed, 
 to the enumerated powers, or rather to the acts 
 which would hinder their execution. By our 
 construction, the Constitution remains defined 
 and limited, according to the plain intent and 
 meaning of its framers ; by the construction of 
 the committee, all limitation is lost, and it may 
 be extended over the different actions of life as 
 speculative politicians may think fit. What 
 has a greater tendency to fit men for insurrec- 
 tion and resistance to government than disso- 
 lute, immoral habits, at once destroying love of
 
 86 JOHN NICHOLAS. 
 
 order, and dissipating the fortune which gives 
 an interest in society ? The doctrine that Con- 
 gress can punish any act which has a tendency 
 to hinder the execution of the laws, as well as 
 acts which do hinder it, will, therefore, clearly 
 entitle them to assume a general guardianship 
 over the morals of the people of the United 
 States. Again, nothing can have a greater 
 tendency to ensure obedience to law, and noth- 
 ing can be more likely to check every propen- 
 sity to resistance to government, than virtuous 
 and wise education ; therefore Congress must 
 have power to subject all the youth of the 
 United States to a certain system of education. 
 It would be very easy to connect every sort of 
 authority used by any government with the 
 well-being of the General Government, and with 
 as much reason as the committee had for their 
 opinion, to assign the power to Congress, al- 
 though the consequence must be the prostra- 
 tion of the State governments. 
 
 But enough has been said to show the neces- 
 sity of adhering to the common meaning of the 
 word " necessary " in the clause under consid- 
 eration, which is, that the power to be assumed 
 must be one without which some one of the 
 enumerated powers cannot exist or be main-
 
 THE SEDITION LA W, 8/ 
 
 tained. It cannot escape notice, however, that 
 the doctrine contended for, that the Adminis- 
 tration must be protected against writings 
 which are likely to bring it into contempt, as 
 tending to opposition, will apply with more 
 force to truth than falsehood. It eannot be 
 denied that the discovery of maladministration 
 will bring more lasting discredit on the govern- 
 ment of a country than the same charges would 
 if untrue. This is not an alarm founded merely 
 on construction, for the governments which 
 have exercised control over the press have car- 
 ried it the whole length. This is notoriously 
 the law of England, whence this system has 
 been drawn ; for there truth and falsehood 
 are alike subject to punishment, if the publica- 
 tion brings contempt on the officers of govern- 
 ment. * * * 
 
 The law has been current by the fair pretence 
 of punishing nothing but falsehood, and by 
 holding out to the accused the liberty of prov- 
 ing the truth of the writing ; but it was from 
 the first apprehended, and it seems now to be 
 adjudged (the doctrine has certainly been as- 
 serted on this floor), that matters of opinion, 
 arising on notorious facts, come under the law., 
 If this is the case, where is the advantage of
 
 88 JOHN NICHOLAS. 
 
 the law requiring that the writing should be 
 false before a man shall be liable to punish- 
 ment, or of his having the liberty of proving 
 the truth of his writing ? Of the truth of facts 
 there is an almost certain test ; the belief of 
 honest men is certain enough to entitle it to 
 great confidence ; but their opinions have no 
 certainty at all. The trial of the truth of 
 opinions, in the best state of society, would be 
 altogether precarious; and perhaps a jury of 
 twelve men could never be found to agree in 
 any one opinion. At the present moment, 
 when, unfortunately, opinion is almost entirely 
 governed by prejudice and passion, it may be 
 more decided, but nobody will say it is more 
 respectable. Chance must determine whether 
 political opinions are true or false, and it will 
 not unfrequently happen that a man will be 
 punished for publishing opinions which are sin- 
 cerely his, and which are of a nature to be ex- 
 tremely interesting to the public, merely because 
 accident or design has collected a jury of differ- 
 ent sentiments. * * * 
 
 Is the power claimed proper for Congress to 
 possess ? It is believed not, and this will readily 
 be admitted if it can be proved, as I think it 
 can, that the persons who administer the gov-
 
 THE SEDITION LAW. 89 
 
 ernment have an interest in the power to be con- 
 fided opposed to that of the community. It 
 must be agreed that the nature of our govern- 
 ment makes a diffusion of knowledge of public 
 affairs necessary and proper, and that the peo- 
 ple have no mode of obtaining it but through 
 the press. The necessity for their having this 
 information results from its being their duty to 
 elect all the parts of the Government, and, in 
 this way, to sit in judgment over the conduct 
 of those who have been heretofore employed. 
 The most important and necessary information 
 for the people to receive is that of the miscon- 
 duct of the Government, because their good 
 deeds, although they will produce affection and 
 gratitude to public officers, will only confirm 
 the existing confidence, and will, therefore, 
 make no change in the conduct of the people. 
 The question, then, whether the Government 
 ought to have control over the persons who 
 alone can give information throughout a country 
 is nothing more than this, whether men, inter- 
 ested in suppressing information necessary for 
 the people to have, ought to be entrusted with 
 the power, or whether they ought to have a 
 power which their personal interest leads to the 
 abuse of. I am sure no candid man will hesi-
 
 9O JOHN NICHOLAS. 
 
 tate about the answer ; and it may also safely 
 be left with ingenuous men to say whether the 
 misconduct which we sometimes see in the 
 press had not better be borne with, than to run 
 the risk of confiding the power of correction to 
 men who will be constantly urged by their own 
 feelings to destroy its usefulness. * * * How 
 long can it be desirable to have periodical elec- 
 tions for the purpose of judging of the conduct 
 of our rulers, when the channels of information 
 may be choked at their will ? 
 
 But, sir, I have ever believed this question as 
 settled by an amendment to the Constitution, 
 proposed with others for declaring and restrict- 
 ing its powers, as the preamble declares, at the 
 request of several of the States, made at the 
 adoption of the Constitution, in order to pre- 
 vent their misconstruction and abuse. This 
 amendment is in the following words : " Con- 
 gress shall make no law respecting an establish- 
 ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exer- 
 cise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech 
 or of the press, or the right of the people 
 peaceably to assemble and petition the Govern- 
 ment for a redress of grievances." There can 
 be no doubt about the effect of this amend- 
 ment, unless the " freedom of the press" means
 
 THE SEDITION LAW. 9 1 
 
 something very different from what it seems ; 
 or unless there was some actual restraint upon 
 it, under the Constitution of the United States, 
 at the time of the adoption of this amendment, 
 commensurate with that imposed by this law. 
 Both are asserted, viz., that the " freedom of 
 the press " has a defined, limited meaning, and 
 that the restraints of the common law were in 
 force under the United States, and are greater 
 than those of the act of Congress, and that, 
 therefore, either way the " freedom of the press " 
 is not abridged. 
 
 It is asserted by the select committee, and 
 by everybody who has gone before them in 
 this discussion, that the " freedom of the press," 
 according to the universally received accepta- 
 tion of the expression, means only an exemp- 
 tion from all previous restraints on publication, 
 but not an exemption from any punishment 
 Government pleases to inflict for what is pub- 
 lished. This definition does not at all distin- 
 guish between publications of different sorts, 
 but leaves all to the regulation of the law, only 
 forbidding Government to interfere until the 
 publication is really made. The definition, if 
 true, so reduces the effect of the amendment 
 that the power of Congress is left unlimited
 
 92 JOHN NICHOLAS, 
 
 over the productions of the press, and they are 
 merely deprived of one mode of restraint. 
 
 The amendment was certainly intended to 
 produce some limitation to legislative discretion, 
 and it must be construed so as to produce such 
 an effect, if it is possible. * * * To give it 
 such a construction as will bring it to a mere 
 nullity would violate the strongest injunctions 
 of common-sense and decorum, and yet that 
 appears to me to be the effect of the construc- 
 tion adopted by the committee. * * * The 
 effect of the amendment, say the committee, 
 is to prevent Government taking the press from 
 its owner ; but how is their power lessened by 
 this, when they may take the printer from his 
 press and imprison him for any length of time, 
 for publishing what they choose to prohibit, 
 although it may be ever so proper for public in- 
 formation ? The result is that Government may 
 forbid any species of writing, true as well as 
 false, to be published ; may inflict the heaviest 
 punishments they can devise for disobedience, 
 and yet we are very gravely assured that this is 
 the " freedom of the press." * * * 
 
 A distinction is very frequently relied on 
 between the freedom and the licentiousness of 
 the press, which it is proper to examine. This
 
 THE SEDITION LA W. 93 
 
 seems to me to refute every other argument 
 which is used on this subject ; it amounts to an 
 admission that there are some acts of the press 
 which Congress ought not to have power to re- 
 strain, and that by the amendment they are pro- 
 hibited to restrain these acts. Now, to justify 
 any act of Congress, they ought to show the 
 boundary between what is prohibited and what 
 is permitted, and that the act is not within the 
 prohibited class. The Constitution has fixed no 
 such boundary, therefore they can pretend to 
 no power over the press, without claiming the 
 right of defining what is freedom and what is 
 licentiousness, and that would be to claim a 
 right which would defeat the Constitution ; for 
 every Congress would have the same right, and 
 the freedom of the press would fluctuate ac- 
 cording to the will of the legislature. This is, 
 therefore, only a new mode of claiming absolute 
 power over the press. 
 
 It is said there is a common law which makes 
 part of the law of the United States, which re- 
 strained the press more than the act of Con- 
 gress has done, and that therefore there is no 
 abridgment of its freedom. What this com- 
 mon law is I cannot conceive, nor have I seen 
 anybody who could explain himself when he
 
 94 JOHN NICHOLAS. 
 
 was talking of it. It certainly is not a com- 
 mon law of the United States, acquired, as that 
 of England was, by immemorial usage. The 
 standing of the Government makes this impos- 
 sible. It cannot be a code of laws adopted 
 because they were universally in use in the 
 States, for the States had no uniform code ; and, 
 if they had, it could hardly become, by implica- 
 tion, part of the code of a Government of lim- 
 ited powers, from which every thing is ex- 
 pressly retained which is not given. Is it the 
 law of England, at any particular period, which 
 is adopted ? But the nature of the law of En- 
 gland makes it impossible that it should have 
 been adopted in the lump into such a Govern- 
 ment as this is, because it was a complete sys- 
 tem for the management of all the affairs of 
 a country. It regulated estates, punished all 
 crimes, and, in short, went to all things for 
 which laws were necessary. But how was 
 this law adopted ? Was it by the Constitution ? 
 If so, it is immutable and incapable of amend- 
 ment. In what part of the Constitution is it 
 declared to be adopted ? Was it adopted by 
 the courts ? From whom do they derive their 
 authority? The Constitution, in the clause first 
 cited, relies on Congress to pass all laws neces-
 
 THE SEDITION LA W. 95 
 
 sary to enable the courts to carry their powers 
 into execution ; it cannot, therefore, have been 
 intended to give them a power not necessary to 
 their declared powers. There does not seem to 
 me the smallest pretext for so monstrous an as- 
 sumption ; on the contrary, while the Constitu- 
 tion is silent about it, every fair inference is 
 against it. 
 
 Upon the whole, therefore, I am fully satis- 
 fled that no power is given by the Constitution 
 to control the press, and that such laws are ex- 
 pressly prohibited by the amendment. I think it 
 inconsistent with the nature of our Government 
 that its administration should have power to re- 
 strain animadversions on public measures, and 
 for protection from private injury from defa- 
 mation the States are fully competent. It is to 
 them that our officers must look for protection 
 of persons, estates, and every other personal 
 right ; and, therefore, I see no reason why it is 
 not proper to rely upon it for defence against 
 private libels*
 
 III. 
 
 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 97
 
 III. 
 
 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 THE inaugural address of President Jefferson 
 has been given the first place under this period, 
 notwithstanding the fact that it was not at all an 
 oration. The inaugural addresses of presidents 
 Washington and Adams were really orations, 
 although written, depending for much of their 
 effect on the personal presence of him who de- 
 livered the address; that of Jefferson was 
 altogether a business document, sent to be read 
 by the two houses of Congress for their infor- 
 mation, and without any of the adjuncts of the 
 orator. 
 
 It is impossible, nevertheless, to spare the in- 
 augural address of the first Democratic Presi- 
 dent, for it is pervaded by a personality which, 
 if quieter in its operation, was more potent in 
 results than the most burning eloquence could 
 99
 
 TOO THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 have been. The spirit of modern democracy, 
 which has become, for good or evil, the common 
 characteristic of all American parties and lead- 
 ers, was here first put into living words. Tri- 
 umphant in national politics, this spirit now 
 had but one field of struggle, the politics of the 
 States, and here its efforts were for years bent 
 to the abolition of every remnant of limitation 
 on individual liberty. Outside of New Eng- 
 land, the change was accomplished as rapidly 
 as the forms of law could be put into the neces- 
 sary direction ; remnants of ecclesiastical gov- 
 ernment, ecclesiastical taxes of even the mildest 
 description, restrictions on manhood suffrage, 
 State electoral systems, were the immediate 
 victims of the new spirit, and the first term of 
 Mr. Jefferson saw most of the States under 
 democratic governments. Inside of New Eng- 
 land, the change was stubbornly resisted, and, 
 for a time, with success. For about twenty 
 years, the general rule was that New England 
 and Delaware were federalist, and the rest of 
 the country was democratic. But even in New
 
 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. IOI 
 
 England, a strong democratic minority was 
 growing up, and about 1820 the last barriers of 
 federalism gave way ; Connecticut, the federal- 
 ist " land of steady habits," accepted a new and 
 democratic constitution ; Massachusetts modi- 
 fied hers ; and the new and reliably democratic 
 State of Maine was brought into existence. 
 The " era of good feeling " signalized the ex- 
 tinction of the federal party and the universal 
 reign of democracy. The length of this period 
 of contest is the strongest testimony to the 
 stubbornness of the New England fibre. Esti- 
 mated by States, the success of democracy was 
 about as complete in 1803 as in 1817; but it 
 required fifteen years of persistent struggle to 
 convince the smallest section of the Union that 
 it was hopelessly defeated. 
 
 The whole period was a succession of great 
 events. The acquisition of Louisiana, stretch- 
 ing from the Mississippi to the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, laid, in 1803, the foundations of that im- 
 perial domain which the steamboat and railroad 
 were to convert to use in after-years. The con-
 
 IO2 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 tinental empire of Napoleon and the island em- 
 pire of Great Britain drifted into a struggle for 
 life or death which hardly knew a breathing 
 space until the last charge at Waterloo, and 
 from the beginning it was conducted by both 
 combatants with a reckless disregard of inter- 
 national public opinion and neutral rights which 
 is hardly credible but for the official records. 
 Every injury inflicted on neutral commerce by 
 one belligerent was promptly imitated or ex- 
 ceeded by the other, and the two were per- 
 fectly in accord in insisting on the convenient 
 doctrine of international law, that, unless neu- 
 tral rights were enforced by the neutral against 
 one belligerent, the injury became open to the 
 imitation of the other. In the process of imita- 
 tion, each belligerent took care to pass at least 
 a little beyond the precedent ; and thus, begin- 
 ning with a paper blockade of the northern 
 coast of the continent by the British Govern- 
 ment, the process advanced, by alternate " re- 
 taliations," to a British proclamation specifying 
 the ports of the world to which American ves-
 
 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 1 03 
 
 sels were to be allowed to trade, stopping in 
 England or its dependencies to pay taxes en 
 route. These two almost contemporary events, 
 the acquisition of Louisiana and the insolent 
 pretensions of the European belligerents, were 
 the central points of two distinct influences 
 which bore strongly on the development of the 
 United States. 
 
 The dominant party, the republicans, had 
 a horror of a national debt which almost 
 amounted to a mania. The associations of the 
 term, derived from their reading of English 
 history, all pointed to a condition of affairs in 
 which the rise of a strong aristocracy was inevi- 
 table ; and, to avoid the latter, they were, de- 
 termined to pay off the former. The payment 
 for Louisiana precluded, in their opinion, the 
 support of a respectable navy ; and the rem- 
 nants of colonialism in their party predisposed 
 them to adopt an ostrich policy instead. The 
 Embargo act was passed in 1807, forbidding all 
 foreign commerce. The evident failure of this 
 act to influence the belligerents brought about
 
 104 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 its repeal in 1809, and the substitution of the 
 Non-intercourse act. This prohibited commer- 
 cial intercourse with England and France until 
 either should revoke its injurious edicts. Na- 
 poleon, by an empty and spurious revocation 
 in 1810, induced Congress to withdraw the act 
 in respect to France, keeping it alive in respect 
 to England. England refused to admit the sin- 
 cerity of the French revocation, to withdraw 
 her Orders in Council, or to cease impressing 
 American seamen. The choice left to the 
 United States was between war and submis- 
 sion. 
 
 The federalist leaders saw that, while their 
 party strength was confined to a continually de- 
 creasing territory, the opposing democracy not 
 only had gained the mass of the original United 
 States, but was swarming toward and beyond 
 the Mississippi. They dropped to the level of 
 a mere party of opposition ; they went further 
 until the only article of their political creed 
 was State sovereignty ; some of them went one 
 step further, and dabbled in hopeless projects
 
 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 10$ 
 
 for secession and the formation of a New Eng- 
 land republic of five States. It is difficult to 
 perceive any advantage to public affairs in the 
 closing years of the federal party, except that, 
 by impelling the democratic leaders to really 
 national acts and sympathies, it unwittingly 
 aided in the development of nationality from 
 democracy. 
 
 If the essential characteristic of colonialism 
 is the sense of dependence and the desire to 
 imitate, democracy, at least in its earlier phases, 
 begets the opposite qualities. The Congres- 
 sional elections of 1810-11 showed that the peo- 
 ple had gone further in democracy than their 
 leaders. " Submission men " were generally 
 defeated in the election ; new leaders, like Clay, 
 Calhoun, and Crawford, made the dominant 
 party a war party, and forced the President into 
 their policy ; and the war of 1812 was begun. 
 Its early defeats on land, its startling successes 
 at sea, its financial straits, the desperation of 
 the contest after the fall of Napoleon, and the 
 brilliant victory which crowned its close, all
 
 106 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 combined to raise the national feeling to the 
 highest pitch ; and the federalists, whose stock 
 object of denunciation was " Mr. Madison's 
 war," though Mr. Madison was about the most 
 unwilling participant in it, came out of it under 
 the ban of every national sympathy. 
 
 Democracy found its most congenial soil in 
 the North, though it never exhibited the full 
 sweep of its power until immigration began to 
 assume its great proportions after 1830. As an 
 example of the manner in which, in a democ- 
 racy, eloquence affects public opinion, and pub- 
 lic opinion controls individual action, Dr. Nott's 
 sermon on the murder of Hamilton by Burr in 
 a duel in 1804, has been placed under this 
 period. Forcibly written and widely read, it 
 made duelling an entirely sporadic disease 
 thereafter in the Northern States. No such re- 
 sult would have been possible in the South, so 
 long as society consisted of a dominant race, 
 encamped amid a multitude of slaves, so long 
 as "the night bell tolling for fire," if we take 
 Randolph's terrible image, excited the instinc-
 
 THE RISE OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 tive fear of negro insurrection ; the military 
 virtues of prompt personal daring influenced 
 public opinion more strongly than the elo- 
 quence of a Demosthenes could have done. 
 
 The speech of Mr. Quincy, in many points 
 one of the most eloquent of our political his- 
 tory, will show the brightest phase of federal- 
 ism at its lowest ebb. One can hardly com- 
 pare it with that of Mr. Clay, which follows it, 
 without noticing the national character of the 
 latter, as contrasted with the lack of nationality 
 of the former. It seems, also, that Mr. Clay's 
 speech carries, in its internal characteristics, 
 sufficient evidence of the natural forces which 
 tended to make democracy a national power, 
 and not a mere adjunct of State sovereignty, 
 wherever the oblique influence of slavery was 
 absent. For this reason, it has been taken as a 
 convenient introduction to the topic which fol- 
 lows, the Rise of Nationality.
 
 THOMAS JEFFERSON, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 (BORN 1743, DIED 1826.) 
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, AS 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 
 
 MARCH 4, l8oi. 
 
 FRIENDS AND FELLOW-CITIZENS : 
 
 Called upon to undertake the duties of the 
 first executive office of our country, I avail 
 myself of the presence of that portion of my 
 fellow-citizens which is here assembled, to ex- 
 press my grateful thanks for the favor with 
 which they have been pleased to look toward 
 me, to declare a sincere consciousness, that the 
 task is above my talents, and that I approach it 
 with those anxious and awful presentiments, 
 which the greatness of the charge, and the 
 weakness of my powers, so justly inspire. A 
 rising nation, spread over a wide and fruitful 
 land, traversing all the seas with the rich pro- 
 ductions of their industry, engaged in com- 
 108
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. IOO, 
 
 merce with nations who feel power and forget 
 right, advancing rapidly to destinies beyond 
 the reach of mortal eye ; when I contemplate 
 these transcendent objects, and see the honor, 
 the happiness, and the hopes of this beloved 
 country committed to the issue and the aus- 
 pices of this day, I shrink from the contempla- 
 tion, and humble myself before the magnitude 
 of the undertaking. Utterly, indeed, should I 
 despair, did not the presence of many, whom I 
 see here, remind me, that, in the other high au- 
 thorities provided by our Constitution, I shall 
 find resources of wisdom, of virtue, and of zeal, 
 on which to rely under all difficulties. To you, 
 then, gentlemen, who are charged with the 
 sovereign functions of legislation, and to those 
 associated with you, I look with encouragement 
 for that guidance and support which may ena- 
 ble us to steer with safety the vessel in which 
 we are all embarked, amidst the conflicting ele- 
 ments of a troubled world. 
 
 During the contest of opinion through which 
 we have passed, the animation of discussions 
 and of exertions has sometimes worn an aspect 
 which might impose on strangers unused to 
 think freely, and to speak and to write what 
 they think ; but this being now decided by the
 
 1 10 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 voice of the nation, announced according to 
 the rules of the Constitution, all will of course 
 arrange themselves under the will of the law, 
 and unite in common efforts for the common 
 good. All too will bear in mind this sacred 
 principle, that though the will of the majority 
 is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be right- 
 ful, must be reasonable ; that the minority pos- 
 sess their equal rights, which equal laws must 
 protect, and to violate which would be op- 
 pression. Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite 
 with one heart and one mind, let us restore to 
 social intercourse that harmony and affection 
 without which liberty and even life itself are 
 but dreary things. And let us reflect, that hav- 
 ing banished from our land that religious intol- 
 erance under which mankind so long bled and 
 suffered, we have yet gained little, if we coun- 
 tenance a political intolerance, as despotic, as 
 wicked, and as capable of as bitter and bloody 
 persecutions. During the throes and convul- 
 sions of the ancient world, during the agoniz- 
 ing spasms of infuriated man, seeking through 
 blood and slaughter his long-lost liberty, it was 
 not wonderful that the agitation of the billows 
 should reach even this distant and peaceful 
 shore ; that this should be more felt and feared
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Ill 
 
 by some, and less by others, and should divide 
 opinions as to measures of safety ; but every 
 difference of opinion is not a difference of prin- 
 ciple. We have called by different names 
 brethren of the same principle. We are all Re- 
 publicans ; we are all Federalists. If there be 
 any among us who wish to dissolve this Union, 
 or to change its republican form, let them stand 
 undisturbed as monuments of the safety with 
 which error of opinion may be tolerated, where 
 reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, 
 that some honest men fear that a republican 
 government cannot be strong ; that this govern- 
 ment is not strong enough. But would the 
 honest patriot, in the full tide of successful ex- 
 periment, abandon a government which has so 
 far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and 
 visionary fear, that this government, the world's 
 best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to 
 preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on 
 the contrary, the strongest government on 
 earth. I believe it the only one where every 
 man, at the call of the law, would fly to the 
 standard of the law, and would meet invasions 
 of the public order as his own personal con- 
 cern. Sometimes it is said, that man cannot be 
 trusted with the government of himself. Can
 
 112 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 he then be trusted with the government of oth- 
 ers? Or, have we found angels in the form of 
 kings, to govern him ? Let history answer this 
 question. 
 
 Let us then, with courage and confidence, 
 pursue our own federal and republican princi- 
 ples ; our attachment to union and representa- 
 tive government. Kindly separated by nature 
 and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc 
 of one quarter of the globe ; too high-minded 
 to endure the degradation of the others, pos- 
 sessing a chosen country, with room enough 
 for our descendants to the thousandth and 
 thousandth generation, entertaining a due 
 sense of our equal right to the use of our own 
 faculties, to the acquisition of our own indus- 
 try, to honor and confidence from our fellow- 
 citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our 
 actions and their sense of them, enlightened by 
 a benign religion, professed indeed and practised 
 in various forms, yet all of them inculcating hon- 
 esty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love 
 of man, acknowledging and adoring an overrul- 
 ing Providence, which, by all its dispensations, 
 proves that it delights in the happiness of man 
 here, and his greater happiness hereafter ; with 
 all these blessings, what more is necessary to
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS, 113 
 
 make us a happy and prosperous people ? Still 
 one thing more, fellow-citizens, a wise and fru- 
 gal government, which shall restrain men from 
 injuring one another, shall leave them other- 
 wise free to regulate their own pursuits of in- 
 dustry and improvement, and shall not take 
 from the mouth of labor the bread it has 
 earned. This is the sum of good government ; 
 and this is necessary to close the circle of our 
 felicities. 
 
 About to enter, fellow-citizens, upon the ex- 
 ercise of duties which comprehend every thing 
 dear and valuable to you, it is proper you 
 should understand what I deem the essential 
 principles of our government, and conse- 
 quently, those which ought to shape its ad- 
 ministration. I will compress them within the 
 narrowest compass they will bear, stating the 
 general principle, but not all its limitations. 
 Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever 
 state or persuasion, religious or political ; 
 peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all 
 nations, entangling alliances with none ; the sup- 
 port of the State governments in all their rights, 
 as the most competent administrations for our 
 domestic concerns, and the surest bulwarks 
 against anti-republican tendencies; the preser-
 
 114 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 vation of the general government in its whole 
 constitutional vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our 
 peace at home and safety abroad ; a jealous 
 care of the right of election by the people, a 
 mild and safe corrective of abuses which are 
 lopped by the sword of revolution where peace- 
 able remedies are unprovided ; absolute acqui- 
 escence in the decisions of the majority, the 
 vital principle of republics, from which there is 
 no appeal but to force, the vital principle and 
 immediate parent of despotism ; a well-disci- 
 plined militia, our best reliance in peace, and 
 for the first moments of war, till regulars may 
 relieve them ; the supremacy of the civil over 
 the military authority ; economy in the public 
 expense, that labor may be lightly burdened ; 
 the honest payment of our debts, and sacred 
 preservation of the public faith ; encourage- 
 ment of agriculture, and of commerce as its 
 handmaid ; the diffusion of information, and 
 arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the pub- 
 lic reason ; freedom of religion, freedom of the 
 press, and freedom of person, under the pro- 
 tection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries 
 impartially selected. These principles form the 
 bright constellation, which has gone before us, 
 and guided our steps through an age of revolu-
 
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. H5 
 
 tion and reformation. The wisdom of our 
 sages, and blood of our heroes, have been de- 
 voted to their attainment ; they should be the 
 creed of our political faith, the text of civic in- 
 struction, the touchstone by which to try the 
 services of those we trust ; and should we wan- 
 der from them in moments of error or of alarm, 
 let us hasten to retrace our steps, and to regain 
 the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and 
 safety. 
 
 I repair, then, fellow-citizens, to the post you 
 have assigned me. With experience enough in 
 subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties 
 of this, the greatest of all, I have learned to 
 expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of im- 
 perfect man, to retire from this station with 
 the reputation and the favor which bring him 
 into it. Without pretensions to that high con- 
 fidence you reposed in our first and greatest 
 revolutionary character, whose pre-eminent ser- 
 vices had entitled him to the first place in his 
 ''country's love, and destined for him the fairest 
 page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so 
 much confidence only as may give firmness 
 and effect to the legal administration of your 
 affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect 
 of judgment. When right, I shall often be
 
 Il6 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 thought wrong by those whose positions will 
 not command a view of the whole ground. I 
 ask your indulgence for my own errors, which 
 will never be intentional ; and your support 
 against the errors of others, who may condemn 
 what they would not, if seen in all its parts. The 
 approbation implied by your suffrage, is a great 
 consolation to me for the past ; and my future 
 solicitude will be, to retain the good opinion of 
 those who have bestowed it in advance, to con- 
 ciliate that of others, by doing them all the 
 good in my power, and to be instrumental to 
 the happiness and freedom of all. 
 
 Relying then on the patronage of your good- 
 will, I advance with obedience to the work, 
 ready to retire from it whenever you become 
 sensible how much better choices it is in your 
 power to make. And may that infinite Power 
 which rules the destinies of the universe, lead 
 our councils to what is best, and give them a 
 favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.
 
 ELIPHALET NOTT. 
 
 (BORN 1773, DIED 1866.) 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON, JULY 
 9, 1804 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y. 
 
 " How are the mighty fallen." 
 
 I FEEL, my brethren, how incongruous my sub- 
 ject is with the place I occupy. It is humiliat- 
 ing ; it is distressing in a Christian country, and 
 in churches consecrated to the religion of Jesus, 
 to be obliged to attack a crime which outstrips 
 barbarism, and would even sink the character of 
 a generous savage. But humiliating as it is, it 
 is necessary. And must we then, even for a 
 moment, forget the elevation on which grace 
 hath placed us, and the light which the gospel 
 sheds around us ? Must we place ourselves 
 back in the midst of barbarism ; and instead of 
 hearers, softened to forgiveness by the love of 
 Jesus, filled with noble sentiments toward our
 
 Il8 ELIPHALET NOTT. 
 
 enemies, and waiting for occasions, after the 
 example of divinity, to do them good ; instead 
 of such hearers, must we suppose ourselves 
 addressing hearts petrified to goodness, in- 
 capable of mercy, and boiling with revenge ? 
 Must we, O my God! instead of exhorting 
 those who hear us, to go on unto perfection, 
 adding to virtue charity, and to charity brother- 
 ly kindness ; must we, as if surrounded by an 
 auditory just emerging out of darkness, and 
 still cruel and ferocious, reason to convince 
 them that revenge is improper, and that to com- 
 mit deliberate murder is sin ? 
 
 Yes, we must do this. Repeated violations 
 of the law, and the sanctuary which the guilty 
 find in public sentiment, prove that it is neces- 
 sary. 
 
 Withdraw, therefore, for a moment, ye celes- 
 tial spirits ye holy angels accustomed to hover 
 round these altars, and listen to those strains of 
 grace which, heretofore, have filled this house 
 of God. Other subjects occupy us. Withdraw, 
 therefore, and leave us ; leave us to exhort 
 Christian parents to restrain their vengeance, 
 and at least to keep back their hands from 
 blood ; to exhort youth, nurtured in Christian 
 families, not rashly to sport with life, nor
 
 DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 lightly to wring the widow's heart with sorrows, 
 and fill the orphan's eye with tears. 
 
 In accomplishing the object which is before 
 me, it will not be expected, as it is not neces- 
 sary that I should give a history of duelling. 
 You need not be informed that it originated in 
 a dark and barbarous age. The polished Greek 
 knew nothing of it ; the noble Roman was 
 above it. Rome held in equal detestation the 
 man who exposed his life unnecessarily, and 
 him who refused to expose it when the public 
 good required it. Her heroes were superior to 
 private contests. They indulged no vengeance 
 except against the enemies of their country. 
 Their swords were not drawn unless her honor 
 was in danger ; which honor they defended with 
 their swords not only, but shielded with their 
 bosoms also, and were then prodigal of their 
 blood. But though Greece and Rome knew 
 nothing of duelling, it exists. It exists among 
 us ; and it exists at once the most rash, the 
 most absurd and guilty practice, that ever dis- 
 graced a Christian nation. Guilty because it 
 is a violation of the law. What law ? The law 
 of God. " Thou shalt not kill." This prohibi- 
 tion was delivered by God himself, at Sinai, to 
 the Jews. And that it is of universal and per-
 
 120 ELIPHALET NOTT. 
 
 petual obligation is manifest from the nature 
 of the crime prohibited not only, but also from 
 the express declaration of the Christian law- 
 giver, who hath recognized its justice, and added 
 to it the sanctions of his own authority. 
 
 " Thou shalt not kill." Who? Thou, crea- 
 ture. I, the Creator have given life, and thou 
 shalt not take it away ! When and under 
 what circumstances may I not take away life ? 
 Never, and under no circumstances, without my 
 permission. It is obvious that no discretion 
 whatever is here given. The prohibition is ad- 
 dressed to every individual where the law of 
 God is promulgated, and the terms made use 
 of are express and unequivocal. So that life 
 cannot be taken under any pretext, without in- 
 curring guilt, unless by a permission sanctioned 
 by the same authority which sanctions the gen- 
 eral law prohibiting it. From this law, it is 
 granted, there are exceptions. These excep- 
 tions, however, do not result from any authority 
 which one creature has over the existence of 
 another, but from the positive appointment of 
 that eternal Being, whose " is the world and the 
 fulness thereof. In whose hand is the soul of 
 every living creature, and the breath of all man- 
 kind." Even the authority which we claim
 
 DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 121 
 
 over the lives of animals is not founded on a 
 natural right, but on a positive grant, made by 
 the Deity himself to Noah and his sons. This 
 grant contains' our warrant for taking the lives 
 of animals. But if we may not take the lives 
 of animals without permission from God, much 
 less may we the life of man, made in his image. 
 
 In what cases, then, has the Sovereign of 
 life given this permission ? In rightful war ; by 
 the civil magistrate : and in necessary self-de- 
 fence. Besides these I do not hesitate to de- 
 clare that in the oracles of God there are no 
 others. He, therefore, who takes life in any 
 other case, under whatever pretext, takes it un- 
 warrantably, is guilty of what the Scriptures 
 call murder, and exposes himself to the male- 
 diction of that God who is an avenger of blood, 
 and who hath said : " At the hand of every 
 man's brother will I require the life of man 
 whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his 
 blood be shed." 
 
 The duellist contravenes the law of God not 
 only but the law of man also. To the prohibi- 
 tion of the former have been added the sanc- 
 tions of the latter. Life taken in a duel, by 
 the common law, is murder. And where this 
 is not the case, the giving and receiving of a
 
 122 ELIPHALET NOTT. 
 
 challenge only, is, by statute, considered a high 
 misdemeanor, for which the principal and his 
 second are declared infamous and disfranchised 
 for twenty years. Under what accumulated 
 circumstances of aggravation does the duellist 
 jeopardize his own life, or take the life of his 
 antagonist ? I am sensible that, in a licentious 
 age, and when laws are made to yield to the 
 vices of those who move in the higher circles, 
 this crime is called by I know not what mild 
 and accommodating name. But before these 
 altars ; in this house of God, what is it ? It is 
 murder deliberate, aggravated murder. If the 
 duellist deny this, let him produce his warrant 
 from the author of life, for taking away from 
 his creature the life which had been sovereignly 
 given. If he cannot do this, beyond all con- 
 troversy, he is a murderer ; for murder consists 
 in taking away life without the permission, and 
 contrary to the prohibition of Him who gave it. 
 Who is it, then, that calls the duellist to the 
 dangerous and deadly combat ? Is it God ? 
 No ; on the contrary, he forbids. Is it, then, 
 his country ? No ; she also utters her prohibi- 
 tory voice. Who is it then ? A man of honor. 
 A man, perhaps, whose honor is a name ; who 
 prates, with polluted lips, about the sacredness
 
 DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 12$ 
 
 of character, when his own is stained with 
 crimes, and needs but the single shade of mur- 
 der to complete the dismal and sickly picture, 
 Every transgression of the divine law implies 
 great guilt, because it is the transgression of in- 
 finite authority. But the crime of deliberately 
 and lightly taking life has peculiar aggrava- 
 tions. It is a crime committed against the 
 written law not only, but also against the dic- 
 tates of reason, the remonstrances of conscience, 
 and every tender and amiable feeling of the 
 heart. To the unfortunate sufferer, it is the 
 wanton violation of his most sacred rights. It 
 snatches him from his friends and his comforts ; 
 terminates his state of trial, and precipitates 
 him, uncalled for, and perhaps unprepared, into 
 the presence of his Judge. 
 
 You will say the duellist feels no malice. Be 
 it so. Malice, indeed, is murder in principle. 
 But there may be murder in reason, and in fact, 
 where there is no malice. Some other un- 
 warrantable passion of principle may lead to 
 the unlawful taking of human life. The high- 
 wayman, who cuts the throat and rifles the 
 pocket of the passing traveller, feels no malice. 
 And could he, with equal ease and no greater 
 danger of detection, have secured his booty
 
 124 EL IP HA LET NOTT. 
 
 without taking life, he would have stayed his 
 arm over the palpitating bosom of his victim, 
 and let the plundered suppliant pass. Would 
 the imputation of cowardice have been inevita- 
 ble to the duellist, if a challenge had not been 
 given or accepted ? The imputation of want 
 had been no less inevitable to the robber, if the 
 money of the passing traveller had not been 
 secured. Would the duellist have been willing 
 to have spared the life of his antagonist, if the 
 point of honor could otherwise have been 
 gained ? So would the robber if the point of 
 property could have been. Who can say that 
 the motives of the one are not as urgent as the 
 motives of the other? And the means, by 
 which both obtain the object of their wishes, 
 are the same. Thus, according to the dictates 
 of reason, as well as the law of God, the high- 
 wayman and the duellist stand on ground 
 equally untenable, and support their guilty 
 havoc of the human race by arguments equally 
 fallacious. 
 
 Is duelling guilty? So it is absurd. It is 
 absurd as a punishment, for it admits of no 
 proportion to crimes ; and besides, virtue and 
 vice, guilt and innocence, are equally exposed 
 by it, to death or suffering. As a reparation, it
 
 DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 125 
 
 is still more absurd, for it makes the injured 
 liable to a still greater injury. And as the 
 vindication of personal character, it is absurd 
 even beyond madness. 
 
 One man of honor, by some inadvertence, or 
 perhaps with design, injures the sensibility of 
 another man of honor. In perfect character, 
 the injured gentleman resents it. He challenges 
 the offender. The offender accepts the chal- 
 lenge. The time is fixed. The place is agreed 
 upon. The circumstances, with an air of 
 solemn mania, are arranged ; and the princi- 
 pals, with their seconds and surgeons, retire 
 under the cover of some solitary hill, or upon 
 the margin of some unfrequented beach, to 
 settle this important question of honor, by 
 stabbing or shooting at each other. One or the 
 other, or both the parties, fall in this gentleman- 
 like contest. And what does this prove? It 
 proves that one or the other, or both of them, 
 as the case may be, are marksmen. But it 
 affords no evidence that either of them possesses 
 honor, probity, or talents. It is true, that he 
 who falls in single combat has the honor of 
 being murdered ; and he who takes his life, the 
 honor of a murderer. Besides this, I know not 
 of any glory that can redound to the infatuated
 
 126 ELIPHALET NOTT. 
 
 combatants, except it be what results from hav- 
 ing extended the circle of wretched widows, and 
 added to the number of hapless orphans. And 
 yet, terminate as it will, this frantic meeting, by 
 a kind of magic influence, entirely varnishes 
 over a defective and smutty character ; trans- 
 forms vice to virtue, cowardice to courage ; 
 makes falsehood, truth ; guilt, innocence, in 
 one word, it gives a new complexion to the 
 whole state of things. The Ethiopian changes 
 his skin, the leopard his spot, and the de- 
 bauched and treacherous, having shot away 
 the infamy of a sorry life, comes back to the 
 field of perfectibility, quite regenerated, and, in 
 the fullest sense, an honorable man. He is 
 now fit for the company of gentlemen. He is 
 admitted to that company, and should he again, 
 by acts of vileness, stain this purity of character 
 so nobly acquired, and should any one have the 
 effrontery to say he has done so, again he 
 stands ready to vindicate his honor, and by 
 another act of homicide to wipe away the stain 
 which has been attached to it * * * 
 
 Ah ! ye tragic shores of Hoboken, crimsoned 
 with the richest blood, I tremble at the crimes 
 you record against us the annual register of 
 murders which you keep and send up to God !
 
 DEATH OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON. I2/ 
 
 Place of inhuman cruelty ! beyond the limits of 
 reason, of duty, and of religion, where man as- 
 sumes a more barbarous nature, and ceases to 
 be man ! What poignant, lingering sorrows do 
 thy lawless combats occasion to surviving rela- 
 tives! Ye who have hearts of pity ye who 
 have experienced the anguish of dissolving 
 friendship who have wept, and still weep, over 
 the mouldering ruins of departed kindred, ye 
 can enter into this reflection. 
 
 " How are the mighty fallen ! " And, regard- 
 less as we are of vulgar deaths, shall not the fall 
 of the mighty affect us ? A short time since, 
 and he who is the occasion of our sorrows was 
 the ornament of his country. He stood on an 
 eminence, and glory covered him. From that 
 eminence he has fallen, suddenly, forever fallen. 
 His intercourse with the living world is now 
 ended ; and those who would hereafter find 
 him must seek him in the grave * * * * 
 Approach and behold, while I lift from his sep- 
 ulchre its covering ! Ye admirers of his great- 
 ness, ye emulous of his talents and his fame, 
 approach and behold him now! How pale! 
 How silent ! No martial bands admire the 
 adroitness of his movements; no fascinated 
 throng weep, and melt, and tremble at his
 
 128 E LIP HA LET NOTT. 
 
 eloquence ! Amazing change ! A shroud ! a 
 coffin ! a narrow, subterraneous cabin ! This is 
 all that now remains of Hamilton ! And is this 
 all that remains of him? During a life so 
 transitory, what lasting monument, then, can 
 our fondest hopes erect ? 
 
 My brethren ! we stand on the borders of an 
 awful gulf, which is swallowing up all things 
 human. And is there, amidst this universal 
 wreck, nothing stable, nothing abiding, nothing 
 immortal, on which poor, frail, dying man can 
 fasten ? Ask the hero, ask the statesman, whose 
 wisdom you have been accustomed to revere, 
 and he will tell you. He will tell you, did I 
 say ? He has already told you from his death- 
 bed, and his illumined spirit still whispers from 
 the heavens the solemn admonition : 
 
 " Mortals ! hastening to the tomb, and once 
 the companions of my pilgrimage, take warning 
 and avoid my errors ; cultivate the virtues I 
 have recommended ; choose the Saviour I have 
 chosen ; live disinterestedly ; live for immor- 
 tality ; and would you rescue any thing from 
 final dissolution, lay it up in God."
 
 JOHN RANDOLPH, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 (BORN 1773, DIED 1833.) 
 
 ON THE MILITIA BILL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 DEC. 10, l8ll. 
 
 MR. SPEAKER : 
 
 This is a question, as it has been presented 
 to this House, of peace or war. In that light 
 it has been argued ; in no other light can I 
 consider it, after the declarations made by 
 members of the Committee of Foreign Rela- 
 tions * * * 
 
 The Committee of Foreign Relations have, 
 indeed, decided that the subject of arming the 
 militia (which has been pressed upon them as 
 indispensable to the public security) does not 
 come within the scope of their authority. On 
 what ground, I have been, and still am, unable 
 to see, they have felt themselves authorized to 
 recommend the raising of standing armies, with 
 a view (as has been declared) of immediate war 
 129
 
 130 JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 a war not of defence, but of conquest, of ag- 
 grandizement, of ambition a war foreign to 
 the interests of this country ; to the interests of 
 humanity itself. * * * 
 
 I cannot refrain from smiling at the liberality 
 of the gentleman in giving Canada to New 
 York in order to strengthen the northern bal- 
 ance of power; while, at the same time, he 
 forewarns her that the western scale must pre- 
 ponderate. I can almost fancy that I see the 
 Capitol in motion toward the falls of Ohio ; 
 after a short sojourn, taking its flight to the 
 Mississippi, and finally alighting at Darien ; 
 which, when the gentleman's dreams are real- 
 ized, will be a most eligible seat of government 
 for the new republic (or empire) of the two 
 Americas ! But it seems that in 1808 we talked 
 and acted foolishly, and to give some color of 
 consistency to that folly we must now commit 
 a greater. 
 
 I hope we shall act a wise part ; take warning 
 by our follies since we have become sensible of 
 them, and resolve to talk and act foolishly no 
 more. It is, indeed, high time to give over 
 such preposterous language and proceedings. 
 This war of conquest, a war for the acquisition 
 of territory and subjects, is to be a new com-
 
 THE MILITIA BILL. 13! 
 
 mentary on the doctrine that republicans are 
 destitute of ambition ; that they are addicted 
 to peace, wedded to the happiness and safety 
 of the great body of their people. But it seems 
 this is to be a holiday campaign ; there is to be 
 no expense of blood, or of treasure on our part ; 
 Canada is to conquer herself ; she is to be sub- 
 dued by the principles of fraternity ! The 
 people of that country are first to be seduced 
 from their allegiance and converted into traitors, 
 as preparatory to making them good citizens ! 
 Although I must acknowledge that some of 
 our flaming patriots were thus manufactured, I 
 do not think the process would hold good with 
 a whole community. It is a dangerous experi- 
 ment. We are to succeed in the French mode, 
 by the system of fraternization all is French. 
 But how dreadfully it might be retorted on the 
 southern and western slave-holding States. I 
 detest this subornation of treason. No ; if 
 we must have them, let them fall by the valor 
 of our arms ; by fair, legitimate conquest ; not 
 become the victims of treacherous seduction. 
 
 I am not surprised at the war spirit which is 
 manifesting itself in gentlemen from the South. 
 In the year 1805-6, in a struggle for the carrying 
 trade of belligerent colonial produce, this country
 
 I$2 JOHN' RANDOLPH. 
 
 was most unwisely brought into collision with 
 the great powers of Europe. By a series of 
 most impolitic aud ruinous measures, utterly 
 incomprehensible to every rational, sober- 
 minded man, the Southern planters, by their 
 own votes, have succeeded in knocking down 
 the price of cotton to seven cents, and of to- 
 bacco (a few choice crops excepted) to nothing ; 
 and in raising the price of blankets (of which a 
 few would not be amiss in a Canadian cam- 
 paign), coarse woollens, and every article of 
 first necessity, three or four hundred per centum. 
 And now, that by our own acts, we have 
 brought ourselves into this unprecedented con- 
 dition, we must get out of it in any way, but 
 by an acknowledgment of our own want of 
 wisdom and forecast. But is war the true rem- 
 edy ? Who will profit by it ? Speculators ; a 
 few lucky merchants, who draw prizes in the 
 lottery; commissaries and contractors. Who 
 must suffer by it ? The people. It is their 
 blood, their taxes that must flow to support 
 it. * * * 
 
 I am gratified to find gentlemen acknowledg- 
 ing the demoralizing and destructive conse- 
 quences of the non-importation law ; confessing 
 the truth of all that its opponents foretold,
 
 THE MILITIA BILL. 133 
 
 when it was enacted. And will you plunge 
 yourselves in war, because you have passed a 
 foolish and ruinous law, and are ashamed to 
 repeal it ? " But our good friend, the French 
 emperor, stands in the way of its repeal, and we 
 cannot go too far in making sacrifices to him, 
 who has given such demonstration of his love 
 for the Americans ; we must, in point of fact, 
 become parties to his war. Who can be so 
 cruel as to refuse him that favor?" My im- 
 agination shrinks from the miseries of such a 
 connection. I call upon the House to reflect, 
 whether they are not about to abandon all 
 reclamation for the unparalleled outrages, " in- 
 sults, and injuries " of the French government ; 
 to give up our claim for plundered millions ; and 
 I ask what reparation or atonement they can 
 expect to obtain in hours of future dalliance, 
 after they shall have made a tender of their 
 person to this great deflowerer of the virginity 
 of republics. We have, by our own wise (I will 
 not say wiseacre) measures, so increased the 
 trade and wealth of Montreal and Quebec, that 
 at last we begin to cast a wistful eye at Can- 
 ada. Having done so much toward its im- 
 provement, by the exercise of " our restrictive 
 energies," we begin to think the laborer worthy
 
 134 JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 of his hire, and to put in a claim for our por- 
 tion. Suppose it ours, are we any nearer to 
 our point ? As his minister said to the king of 
 Epirus, " May we not as well take our bottle of 
 wine before as after this exploit ?" Go! march 
 to Canada ! leave the broad bosom of the 
 Chesapeake and her hundred tributary rivers ; 
 the whole line of sea-coast from Machias to St. 
 Mary's, unprotected ! You have taken Quebec 
 have you conquered England ? Will you 
 seek for the deep foundations of her power in 
 the frozen deserts of Labrador ? 
 
 " Her march is on the mountain wave, 
 Her home is on the deep ! " 
 
 Will you call upon her to leave your ports 
 and harbors untouched only just till you can 
 return from Canada, to defend them? The 
 coast is to be left defenceless, while men of the 
 interior are revelling in conquest and spoil. * * * 
 
 No sooner was the report laid on the table, 
 than the vultures were flocking around their 
 prey the carcass of a great military establish- 
 ment. Men of tainted reputation, of broken 
 fortune (if they ever had any), and of battered 
 constitutions, "choice spirits tired of the dull 
 pursuits of civil life," were seeking after agcn-
 
 THE MILITIA BILL. 135 
 
 cies and commissions, willing to doze in gross 
 stupidity over the public fire ; to light the pub- 
 lic candle at both ends. Honorable men un- 
 doubtedly there are ready to serve their country ; 
 but what man of spirit, or of self-respect, will 
 accept a commission in the present army ? The 
 gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Grundy) ad- 
 dressed himself yesterday exclusively to the 
 "Republicans of the House." I know not 
 whether I may consider myself as entitled to 
 any part of the benefit of the honorable gen- 
 tleman's discourse. It belongs not, however, to 
 that gentleman to decide. If we must have an 
 exposition of the doctrines of republicanism, I 
 shall receive it from the fathers of the church, 
 and not from the junior apprentices of the law. 
 I shall appeal to my worthy friends from Caro- 
 lina (Messrs. Macon and Stanford), " men with 
 whom I have measured my strength," by whose 
 side I have fought during the reign of terror; 
 for it was indeed an hour of corruption, of op- 
 pression, of pollution. It was not at all to my 
 taste that sort of republicanism which was 
 supported, on this side of the Atlantic, by the 
 father of the sedition law, John Adams, and by 
 Peter Porcupine on the other. Republicanism ! 
 of John Adams and William Cobbett ! * * *
 
 136 JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 Gallant crusaders in the holy cause of repub- 
 licanism. Such " republicanism does, indeed, 
 mean any thing or nothing." Our people will 
 not submit to be taxed for this war of conquest 
 and dominion. The government of the United 
 States was not calculated to wage offensive 
 foreign war ; it was instituted for the common 
 defence and the general welfare ; and whosoever 
 should embark it in a war of offence, would put 
 it to a test which it is by no means calculated 
 to endure. Make it out that Great Britain has 
 instigated the Indians on a late occasion, and I 
 am ready for battle, but not for dominion. I 
 am unwilling, however, under present circum- 
 stances, to take Canada, at the risk of the Con- 
 stitution, to embark in a common cause with 
 France, and be dragged at the wheels of the car 
 of some Burr or Bonaparte. For a gentleman 
 from Tennessee, or Genesee, or Lake Cham- 
 plain, there may be some prospect of advantage. 
 Their hemp would bear a great price by the 
 exclusion of foreign supply. In that, too, the 
 great importers are deeply interested. The 
 upper country of the Hudson and the lakes 
 would be enriched by the supplies for the troops, 
 which they alone could furnish. They would 
 have the exclusive market ; to say nothing of
 
 THE MILITIA BILL. 
 
 the increased preponderance from the acquisi- 
 tion of Canada and that section of the Union, 
 which the Southern and Western States have 
 already felt so severely in the Apportionment 
 bill. * * * 
 
 Permit me now, sir, to call your attention to 
 the subject of our black population. I will 
 touch this subject as tenderly as possible. It is 
 with reluctance that I touch it at all ; but in 
 cases of great emergency, the State physician 
 must not be deterred by a sickly, hysterical 
 humanity, from probing the wound of his pa- 
 tient ; he must not be withheld by a fastidious 
 and mistaken delicacy from representing his 
 true situation to his friends, or even to the sick 
 man himself, when the occasion calls for it. 
 What is the situation of the slave-holding 
 States? During the war of the Revolution, so 
 fixed were their habits of subordination, that 
 while the whole country was overrun by the 
 enemy, who invited them to desert, no fear was 
 ever entertained of an insurrection of the slaves. 
 During a war of seven years, with our country 
 in possession of the enemy, no such danger 
 was ever apprehended. But should we, there- 
 fore, be unobservant spectators of the progress 
 of society within the last twenty years ; of the
 
 138 JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 silent but powerful change wrought, by time 
 and chance, upon its composition and temper? 
 When the fountains of the great deep of abomi- 
 nation were broken up, even the poor slaves did 
 not escape the general deluge. The French 
 Revolution has polluted even them. * * * 
 
 Men, dead to the operation of moral causes, 
 have taken away from the poor slave his habit 
 of loyalty and obedience to his master, which 
 lightened his servitude by a double operation ; 
 beguiling his own cares and disarming his 
 master's suspicions and severity ; and now, like 
 true empirics in politics, you are called upon to 
 trust to the mere physical strength of the fet- 
 ter which holds him in bondage. You have de- 
 prived him of all moral restraint ; you have 
 tempted him to eat of the fruit of the tree of 
 knowledge, just enough to perfect him in wick- 
 edness ; you have opened his eyes to his naked- 
 ness ; you have armed his nature against the 
 hand that has fed, that has clothed him, that 
 has cherished him in sickness ; that hand which 
 before he became a pupil of your school, he 
 had been accustomed to press with respectful 
 affection. You have done all this and then 
 show him the gibbet and the wheel, as incen- 
 tives to a sullen, repugnant obedience. God
 
 THE MILITIA BILL. 139 
 
 forbid, sir, that the Southern States should 
 ever see an enemy on their shores, with these 
 infernal principles of French fraternity in the 
 van. While talking of taking Canada, some of 
 us are shuddering for our own safety at home. 
 I speak from facts, when I say, that the night- 
 bell never tolls for fire in Richmond, that the 
 mother does not hug her infant more closely to 
 her bosom. I have been a witness of some of 
 the alarms in the capital of Virginia. * * * 
 Against whom are these charges brought ? 
 Against men, who in the war of the Revolu- 
 tion were in the councils of the nation, or 
 fighting the battles of your country. And by 
 whom are they made ? By runaways chiefly 
 from the British dominions, since the breaking 
 out of the French troubles. It is insufferable. 
 It cannot be borne. It must and ought, with 
 severity, to be put down in this House ; and 
 out of it to meet the lie direct. We have no 
 fellow-feeling for the suffering and oppressed 
 Spaniards ! Yet even them we do not repro- 
 bate. Strange ! that we should have no objec- 
 tion to any other people or government, civil- 
 ized or savage, in the whole world ! The great 
 autocrat of all the Russias receives the homage 
 of our high consideration. The Dey of Algiers
 
 140 JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 and his divan of pirates are very civil, good 
 sort of people, with whom we find no difficulty 
 in maintaining the relations of peace and amity. 
 " Turks, Jews, and infidels " ; Melimelli or the 
 Little Turtle ; barbarians and savages of every 
 clime and color, are welcome to our arms. 
 With chiefs of banditti, negro or mulatto, we 
 can treat and trade. Name, however, but Eng- 
 land, and all our antipathies are up in arms 
 against her. Against whom? Against those 
 whose blood runs in our" veins; in common with 
 whom, we claim Shakespeare, and Newton, and 
 Chatham, for our countrymen ; whose form of 
 government is the freest on earth, our own only 
 excepted ; from whom every valuable principle 
 of our own institutions has been borrowed 
 representation, jury trial, voting the supplies, 
 writ of habeas corpus, our whole civil and 
 criminal jurisprudence ; against our fellow 
 Protestants, identified in blood, in language, in 
 religion, with ourselves. In what school did 
 the worthies of our land, the Washingtons, 
 Henrys, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges of 
 America, learn those principles, of civil liberty 
 which were so nobly asserted by their wisdom 
 and valor? American reistance to British 
 usurpation has not been more warmly cherished
 
 THE MILITIA BILL. 14! 
 
 by these great men and their compatriots ; not 
 more by Washington, Hancock, and Henry, than 
 by Chatham and his illustrious associates in the 
 British Parliament. It ought to be remem- 
 bered, too, that the heart of the English people 
 was with us. It was a selfish and corrupt min- 
 istry, and their servile tools, to whom we were 
 not more opposed than they were. I trust that 
 none such may ever exist among us ; for tools 
 will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, 
 however ruinous or wicked, of kings and minis- 
 ters of state. I acknowledge the influence of a 
 Shakespeare and a Milton upon my imagina- 
 tion, of a Locke upon my understanding, of a 
 Sidney upon my political principles, of a Chat- 
 ham upon qualities which, would to God I 
 possessed in common with that illustrious man ! 
 of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, and a Porteus upon 
 my religion. This is a British influence which 
 I can never shake off. I allow much to the 
 just and honest prejudices growing out of the 
 Revolution. But by whom have they been 
 suppressed, when they ran counter to the inter- 
 ests of my country? By Washington. By 
 whom, would you listen to them, are they most 
 keenly felt? By felons escaped from the jails 
 of Paris, Newgate, and Kilmainham, since the
 
 142 JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 breaking out of the French Revolution ; who, in 
 this abused and insulted country, have set up for 
 political teachers, and whose disciples give no 
 other proof of their progress in republicanism, 
 except a blind devotion to the most ruthless 
 military despotism that the world ever saw. 
 These are the patriots, who scruple not to brand 
 with the epithet of Tory, the men (looking to- 
 ward the seat of Col. Stewart) by whose blood 
 your liberties have been cemented. These are 
 they, who hold in such keen remembrance the 
 outrages of the British armies, from which 
 many of them are deserters. Ask these self- 
 styled patriots where they were during the 
 American war (for they are, for the most part, 
 old enough to have borne arms), and you 
 strike them dumb ; their lips are closed in eter- 
 nal silence. If it were allowable to entertayi 
 partialities, every consideration of blood, lan- 
 guage, religion, and interest, would incline us 
 toward England : and yet, shall they alone be 
 extended to France and her ruler, whom we 
 are bound to believe a chastening God suffers 
 as the scourge of a guilty world ! On all other 
 nations he tramples ; he holds them in con- 
 tempt ; England alone he hates ; he would, but 
 he cannot, despise her ; fear cannot despise ; 
 and shall we disparage our ancestors ?
 
 THE MILITIA BILL. 143 
 
 But the outrages and injuries of England 
 bred up in the principles of the Revolution I 
 can never palliate, much less defend them. I 
 well remember flying, with my mother and her 
 new-born child, from Arnold and Philips ; and 
 we were driven by Tarleton and other British 
 Pandours from pillar to post, while her husband 
 was righting the battles of his country. The 
 impression is indelible on my memory ; and yet 
 (like my worthy old neighbor, who added seven 
 buckshot to every cartridge at the battle of 
 Guilford, and drew fine sight at his man) I must 
 be content to be called a Tory by a patriot of 
 the last importation. Let us not get rid of one 
 evil (supposing it possible) at the expense of a 
 greater ; mutatis mutandis, suppose France in 
 possession of the British naval power and to 
 her the trident must pass should England be 
 unable to wield it what would be your condi- 
 tion ? What would be the situation of your 
 seaports, and their seafaring inhabitants ? Ask 
 Hamburg, Lubec ! Ask Savannah ! * * * 
 
 Shall republicans become the instruments of 
 him who has effaced the title of Attila to the 
 " scourge of God ! " Yet, even Attila, in the 
 falling fortunes of civilization, had, no doubt, 
 his advocates, his tools, his minions, his para-
 
 144 JOHN RANDOLPH. 
 
 sites, in the very countries that he overran ; 
 sons of that soil whereon his horse had trod ; 
 where grass could never after grow. If per- 
 fectly fresh, instead of being as I am, my mem- 
 ory clouded, my intellect stupefied, my strength 
 and spirits exhausted, I could not give utterance 
 to that strong detestation which I feel toward 
 (above all other works of the creation) such 
 characters as Gengis, Tamerlane, Kouli-Khan, 
 or Bonaparte. My instincts involuntarily revolt 
 at their bare idea. Malefactors of the human 
 race, who have ground down man to a mere 
 machine of their impious and bloody ambition ! 
 Yet under all the accumulated wrongs, and in- 
 sults, and robberies of the last of these chief- 
 tains, are we not, in point of fact, about to 
 become a party to his views, a partner in his 
 wars ? * * * 
 
 I call upon those professing to be republicans 
 to make good the promises, held out by their 
 republican predecessors, when they came into 
 power ; promises which, for years afterward, they 
 honestly, faithfully fulfilled. We have vaunted 
 of paying off the national debt, of retrenching 
 useless establishments ; and yet have now be- 
 come as infatuated with standing armies, loans, 
 taxes, navies, and war as ever were the Essex 
 Junto!
 
 JOSIAH QUINCY, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 (BORN 1772, DIED 1864.) 
 
 ON THE ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA HOUSE OF 
 REPRESENTATIVES, JAN. 14, l8ll. 
 
 MR. SPEAKER : 
 
 I address you, sir, with anxiety and distress of 
 mind, with me, wholly unprecedented. The 
 friends of this bill seem to consider it as the exer- 
 cise of a common power ; as an ordinary affair; 
 a mere municipal regulation, which they expect 
 to see pass without other questions than those 
 concerning details. But, sir, the principle of 
 this bill materially affects the liberties and 
 rights of the whole people of the United States. 
 To me it appears that it would justify a revo- 
 lution in this country ; and that, in no great 
 length of time it may produce it. When I see 
 the zeal and perseverance with which this bill 
 has been urged along its parliamentary path, 
 when I know the local interests and associ- 
 145
 
 146 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 ated projects which combine to promote its 
 success, all opposition to it seems manifestly 
 unavailing. I am almost tempted to leave, 
 without a struggle, my country to its fate. 
 But, sir, while there is life, there is hope. So 
 long as the fatal shaft has not yet sped, if 
 Heaven so will, the bow may be broken and 
 the vigor of the mischief-meditating arm 
 withered. If there be a man in this House 
 or nation, who cherishes the Constitution, under 
 which we are assembled, as the chief stay of his 
 hope, as the light which is destined to gladden 
 his own day, and to soften even the gloom of 
 the grave, by the prospects it sheds over 
 his children, I fall not behind him in such 
 sentiments. I will yield to no man in attach- 
 ment to this Constitution, in veneration for the 
 sages who laid its foundations, in devotion to 
 those principles which form its cement and con- 
 stitute its proportions. What then must be my 
 feelings ; what ought to be the feelings of a 
 man, cherishing such sentiments, when he sees 
 an act contemplated which lays ruin at the foot 
 of all these hopes? When he sees a principle 
 of action about to be usurped, before the opera- 
 tion of which the bands of this Constitution are 
 no more than flax before the fire, or stubble be.
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 147 
 
 fore the whirlwind. When this bill passes, such 
 an act is done ; and such a principle is usurped. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, there is a great rule of human 
 conduct, which he who honestly observes, can- 
 not err widely from the path of his sought duty. 
 It is, to be very scrupulous concerning the prin- 
 ciples you select as the test of your rights and 
 obligations ; to be very faithful in noticing the 
 result of their application ; and to be very fear- 
 less in tracing and exposing their immediate 
 effects and distant consequences. Under the 
 sanction of this rule of conduct, I am compelled 
 to declare it as my deliberate opinion, that, if 
 this bill passes, the bonds of this union are, virtu- 
 ally, dissolved ; that the States which compose it 
 are free from their moral obligations, and that 
 as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty 
 of some, to prepare, definitely, for a separation : 
 amicably, if they can ; violently, if they must. 
 
 (Mr. Quincy was here called to order by Mr. 
 Poindexter, delegate from the Mississippi ter- 
 ritory, for the words in italics. After it was 
 decided, upon an appeal to the House, that 
 Mr. Quincy was in order, he proceeded.) 
 
 I rejoice, Mr. Speaker, at the result of this 
 appeal. Not from any personal consideration, 
 but from the respect paid to the essential rights
 
 148 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 of the people, in one of their representatives. 
 When I spoke of the separation of the States, as 
 resulting from the violation of the Constitution 
 contemplated in this bill, I spoke of it as a neces- 
 sity, deeply to be deprecated ; but as resulting 
 from causes so certain and obvious as to be 
 absolutely inevitable, when the effect of the 
 principle is practically experienced. It is to 
 preserve, to guard the Constitution of my 
 country, that I denounce this attempt. I would 
 rouse the attention of gentlemen from the 
 apathy with which they seem beset. These ob- 
 servations are not made in a corner ; there is no 
 low intrigue ; no secret machination. I am on 
 the people's own ground ; to them I appeal con- 
 cerning their own rights, their own liberties, 
 their own intent, in adopting this Constitution. 
 The voice I have uttered, at which gentlemen 
 startle with such agitation, is no unfriendly 
 voice. I intended it as a voice of warning. By 
 this people, and by the event, if this bill passes, 
 I am willing to be judged, whether it be not 
 a voice of wisdom. 
 
 The bill which is now proposed to be passed 
 has this assumed principle for its basis ; that 
 the three branches of this national government, 
 without recurrence to conventions of the peo-
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 149 
 
 pie in the States, or to the Legislatures of 
 the States, are authorized to admit new 
 partners to a share of the political power, in 
 countries out of the original limits of the United 
 States. Now, this assumed principle, I main- 
 tain to be altogether without any sanction in 
 the Constitution. I declare it to be a manifest 
 and atrocious usurpation of power ; of a nature, 
 dissolving, according to undeniable principles 
 of moral law, the obligations of our national 
 compact ; and leading to all the awful con- 
 sequences which flow from such a state of things. 
 Concerning this assumed principle, which is the 
 basis of this bill, this is the general position, on 
 which I rest my argument ; that if the author- 
 ity, now proposed to be exercised, be delegated 
 to the three branches of the government by 
 virtue of the Constitution, it results either from 
 its general nature, or from its particular pro- 
 visions. I shall consider distinctly both these 
 sources, in relation to this pretended power. 
 
 Touching the general nature of the instru- 
 ment called the Constitution of the United 
 States there is no obscurity ; it has no fabled 
 descent, like the palladium of ancient Troy, 
 from the heavens. Its origin is not confused 
 by the mists of time, or hidden by the darkness
 
 I$O JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 of passed, unexplored ages; it is the fabric of 
 our day. Some now living, had a share in its 
 construction ; all of us stood by, and saw the 
 rising of the edifice. There can be no doubt 
 about its nature. It is a political compact. By 
 whom? And about what? The preamble to 
 the instrument will answer these questions. 
 
 " We, the people of the United States, in 
 order to form a more perfect union, establish 
 justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for 
 the common defence, promote the general wel- 
 fare, and secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
 selves and our posterity, do ordain and establish 
 this Constitution, for the United States of 
 America." 
 
 It is, we the people of the United States, for 
 ourselves and our posterity ; not for the people 
 of Louisana ; nor for the people of New Or- 
 leans or of Canada. None of these enter into 
 the scope of the instrument ; it embraces only 
 " the United States of America." Who these 
 are, it may seem strange in this place to in- 
 quire. But truly, sir, our imaginations have, of 
 late, been so accustomed to wander after new 
 settlements to the very ends of the earth, that 
 it will not be time ill spent to inquire what this 
 phrase means, and what it includes. These are
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. \*>\ 
 
 not terms adopted at hazard ; they have refer- 
 ence to a state of things existing anterior to the 
 Constitution. When the people of the present 
 United States began to contemplate a sever- 
 ance from their parent State, it was a long 
 time before they fixed definitely the name by 
 which they would be designated. In 1774, they 
 called themselves " the Colonies and Provinces 
 of North America." In 1775, " the Repre- 
 sentatives of the United Colonies of North 
 America." In the Declaration of Independence, 
 " the Representatives of the United States of 
 America." And finally, in the articles of con- 
 federation, the style of the confederacy is de- 
 clared to be " the United States of America." 
 It was with reference to the old articles of con- 
 federation, and to preserve the identity and 
 established individuality of their character, that 
 the preamble to this Constitution, not content, 
 simply, with declaring that it is " we the people 
 of the United States," who enter into this com- 
 pact, adds that it is for " the United States of 
 America." Concerning the territory contem- 
 plated by the people of the United States, in 
 these general terms, there can be no dispute ; 
 it is settled by the treaty of peace, and included 
 within the Atlantic Ocean, the St. Croix, the
 
 I $2 JO SI A II QUINCY. 
 
 lakes, and more precisely, so far as relates to 
 the frontier, having relation to the present 
 argument, within " a line to be drawn through 
 the middle of the river Mississippi, until it in- 
 tersect the northernmost part of the thirty- 
 first degree of north latitude, thence within a 
 line drawn due east on this degree of latitude 
 to the river Apalachicola, thence along the 
 middle of this river to its junction with the 
 Flint River, thence straight to the head of the 
 St. Mary's River, and thence down the St. 
 Mary's to the Atlantic Ocean." 
 
 I have been thus particular to draw the minds 
 of gentlemen, distinctly, to the meaning of the 
 terms used in the preamble ; to the extent 
 which " the United States " then included ; and 
 to the fact, that neither New Orleans, nor 
 Louisiana, was within the comprehension of the 
 terms of this instrument. It is sufficient for 
 the present branch of my argument to say, that 
 there is nothing, in the general nature of this 
 compact, from which the power, contemplated 
 to be exercised in this bill, results. On the 
 contrary, as the introduction of a new associate 
 in political power implies, necessarily, a new di- 
 vision of power, and consequent diminution of 
 the relative proportion of the former proprietors
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 153 
 
 of it, there can, certainly, be nothing more ob- 
 vious, than that from the general nature of the 
 instrument no power can result to diminish and 
 give away, to strangers, any proportion of the 
 rights of the original partners. If such a power 
 exist, it must be found, then, in the particular 
 provisions in the Constitution. The question 
 now arising is, in which of these provisions is 
 given the power to admit new States, to be 
 created in territories beyond the limits of the 
 old United States. If it exist anywhere, it is 
 either in the third section of the fourth article 
 of the Constitution, or in the treaty-making 
 power. If it result from neither of these, it is 
 not pretended to be found anywhere else. 
 
 That part of the third section of the fourth 
 article, on which the advocates of this bill rely, 
 is the following : " New States may be admitted 
 by the Congress, into this Union ; but no new 
 State shall be formed or erected within the 
 jurisdiction of any other State, nor any State be 
 formed by the junction of two or more States, 
 or parts of States, without the consent of the 
 Legislatures of the States concerned, as well as 
 of the Congress." 
 
 I know, Mr. Speaker, that the first clause of 
 this paragraph has been read, with all the su-
 
 154 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 perciliousness of a grammarian's triumph 
 " New States may be admitted by the Congress 
 into this Union," accompanied with this most 
 consequential inquiry : " Is not this a new State 
 to be admitted? And is there not here an ex- 
 press authority?" I have no doubt this is a 
 full and satisfactory argument to every one who 
 is content with the mere colors and superficies 
 of things. And if we were now at the bar of 
 some stall-fed justice, the inquiry would insure 
 the victory to the maker of it, to the manifest 
 delight of the constables and suitors of his 
 court. But, sir, we are now before the tribunal 
 of the whole American people ; reasoning con- 
 cerning their liberties, their rights, their Consti- 
 tution. These are not to be made the victims 
 of the inevitable obscurity of general terms; 
 nor the sport of verbal criticism. The question 
 is concerning the intent of the American people, 
 the proprietors of the old United States, when 
 they agreed to this article. Dictionaries and 
 spelling-books are here of no authority. Neither 
 Johnson, nor Walker, nor Webster, nor Dil- 
 worth, has any voice in this matter. Sir, the 
 question concerns the proportion of power re- 
 served, by this Constitution, to every State in 
 this Union. Have the three branches of this
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 155 
 
 government a right, at will, to weaken and out- 
 weigh the influence, respectively secured to each 
 State in this compact, by introducing, at pleas- 
 ure, new partners, situate beyond the old limits 
 of the United States ? The question has not 
 relation merely to New Orleans. The great 
 objection is to the principle of the bill. If this 
 principle be admitted, the whole space of 
 Louisiana, greater, it is said, than the entire ex- 
 tent of the old United States, will be a mighty 
 theatre, in which this government assumes the 
 right of exercising this unparalleled power. 
 And it will be ; there is no concealment, it is 
 intended to be exercised. Nor will it stop 
 until the very name and nature of the old part- 
 ners be overwhelmed by new-comers into the 
 confederacy. Sir, the question goes to the very 
 root of the power and influence of the present 
 members of this Union. The real intent of this 
 article, is, therefore, an injury of most serious 
 import ; and is to be settled only by a recur- 
 rence to the known history and known relations 
 of this people and their Constitution. These, 
 I maintain, support this position, that the terms 
 "new States," in this article, do not intend 
 new political sovereignties, with territorial an- 
 nexations, to be created without the original 
 limits of the United States. * * *
 
 156 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 But there is an argument stronger even than 
 all those which have been produced, to be 
 drawn from the nature of the power here pro- 
 posed to be exercised. Is it possible that such 
 a power, if it had been intended to be given by 
 the people, should be left dependent upon the 
 effect of general expressions, and such, too, as 
 were obviously applicable to another subject, 
 to a particular exigency contemplated at that 
 time ? Sir, what is this power we propose now 
 to usurp ? Nothing less than a power changing 
 all the proportions of the weight and influence 
 possessed by the potent sovereignties composing 
 this Union. A stranger is to be introduced to 
 an equal share without their consent. Upon 
 a principle pretended to be deduced from the 
 Constitution, this government, after this bill 
 passes, may and will multiply foreign partners 
 in power at its own mere motion ; at its irre- 
 sponsible pleasure ; in other words, as local in- 
 terests, party passions, or ambitious views may 
 suggest. It is a power that from its nature 
 never could be delegated ; never was delegated ; 
 and as it breaks down all the proportions of 
 power guaranteed by the Constitution to the 
 States, upon which their essential security de- 
 pends, utterly annihilates the moral force of this
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. l$7 
 
 
 
 political conduct. Would this people, so wisely 
 vigilant concerning their rights, have transferred 
 to Congress a power to balance, at its will, the 
 political weight of any one State, much more 
 of all the States, by authorizing it to create new 
 States, at its pleasure, in foreign countries, not 
 pretended to be within the scope of the Con- 
 stitution, or the conception of the people at 
 the time of passing it ? This is not so much a 
 question concerning the exercise of sovereignty, 
 as it is who shall be sovereign whether the 
 proprietors of the good old United States shall 
 manage their own affairs in their own way ; or 
 whether they, and their Constitution, and their 
 political rights, shall be trampled under foot by 
 foreigners, introduced through a breach of the 
 Constitution. The proportion of the political 
 weight of each sovereign State constituting 
 this Union depends upon the number of the 
 States which have voice under the compact. 
 This number the Constitution permits us to 
 multiply at pleasure within the limits of the 
 original United States, observing only the ex- 
 pressed limitations in the Constitution. But 
 when, in order to increase your power of aug- 
 menting this number, you pass the old limits, 
 you are guilty of a violation of the Constitu-
 
 158 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 tion in a fundamental point ; and in one, also, 
 which is totally inconsistent with the intent of 
 the contract and the safety of the States which 
 established the association. What is the prac- 
 tical difference to the old partners whether they 
 hold their liberties at the will of a master, or 
 whether by admitting exterior States on an 
 equal footing with the original States, arbiters 
 are constituted, who, by availing themselves of 
 the contrariety of interests and views, which in 
 such a confederacy necessarily will arise, hold 
 the balance among the parties which exist and 
 govern us by throwing themselves into the 
 scale most comformable to their purpose ? In 
 both cases there is an effective despotism. But 
 the last is the more galling, as we carry the 
 chain in the name and gait of freemen. 
 
 I have thus shown, and whether fairly, I am 
 willing to be judged by the sound discretion of 
 the American people, that the power proposed 
 to be usurped in this bill, results neither from 
 the general nature nor the particular provisions 
 of the Federal Constitution ; and that it is a pal- 
 pable violation of it in a fundamental point ; 
 whence flow all the consequences I have in- 
 dicated. 
 
 " But," says the gentleman from Tennessee
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 1 59 
 
 (Mr. Rhea), " these people have been seven years 
 citizens of the United States." I deny it, sir. 
 As citizens of New Orleans, or of Louisiana, 
 they never have been, and by the mode pro- 
 posed they never will be, citizens of the United 
 States. They may girt upon us for a moment, 
 but no real cement can grow from such an as- 
 sociation. What the real situation of the in- 
 habitants of those foreign countries is, I shall 
 have occasion to show presently. " But," says the 
 same gentleman : " if I have a farm, have not I 
 a right to purchase another farm, in my neigh- 
 borhood, and settle my sons upon it, and in time 
 admit them to a share in the management of 
 my household?" Doubtless, sir. But are 
 these cases parallel ? Are the three branches of 
 this government owners of this farm, called the 
 United States ? I desire to thank heaven they 
 are not. I hold my life, liberty, and property, 
 and the people of the State from which I have 
 the honor to be a representative hold theirs, by 
 a better tenure than any this National Govern- 
 ment can give. Sir, I know your virtue. And 
 I thank the Great Giver of every good gift, that 
 neither the gentleman from Tennessee, nor his 
 comrades, nor any, nor all the members of this 
 House, nor of the other branch of the Legisla-
 
 160 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 ture, nor the good gentleman who lives in the 
 palace yonder, nor all combined, can touch 
 these my essential rights, and those of my 
 friends and constituents, except in a limited and 
 prescribed form. No, sir. We hold these by 
 the laws, customs, and principles of the com- 
 monwealth of Massachusetts. Behind her 
 ample shield, we find refuge, and feel safety. I 
 beg gentlemen not to act upon the principle, 
 that the commonwealth of Massachusetts is 
 their farm. 
 
 " But," the gentleman adds, " what shall we 
 do, if we do not admit the people of Louisiana 
 into our Union ? Our children are settling 
 that country." Sir, it is no concern of mine 
 what he does. Because his children have run 
 wild and uncovered into the woods, is that a 
 reason for him to break into my house, or the 
 houses of my friends, to filch our children's 
 clothes, in order to cover his children's naked- 
 ness. This Constitution never was, and never 
 can be, strained to lap over all the wilderness of 
 the West, without essentially affecting both the 
 rights and convenience of its real proprietors. 
 It was never constructed to form a covering 
 for the inhabitants of the Missouri and Red 
 River country. And whenever it is attempted
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. l6l 
 
 to be stretched over them, it will rend asunder. 
 I have done with this part of my argument. It 
 rests upon this fundamental principle, that the 
 proportion of political power, subject only to 
 internal modifications, permitted by the Consti- 
 tution, is an unalienable, essential, intangible 
 right. When it is touched, the fabric is an- 
 nihilated ; for, on the preservation of these pro- 
 portions, depend our rights and liberties. 
 
 If we recur to the known relations existing 
 among the States at the time of the adoption 
 of this Constitution, the same conclusions will 
 result. The various interests, habits, manners, 
 prejudices, education, situation, and views, 
 which excited jealousies and anxieties in the 
 breasts of some of our most distinguished citi- 
 zens, touching the result of the proposed Con- 
 stitution, were potent obstacles to its adop- 
 tion. The immortal leader of our Revolution, 
 in his letter to the President of the old Con- 
 gress, written as president of the convention 
 which formed this compact, thus speaks on this 
 subject : " It is at all times difficult to draw, 
 with precision, the line between those rights 
 which must be surrendered, and those which 
 may be reserved ; and on the present occasion 
 this difficulty was increased by a difference
 
 1 62 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 among the several States, as to their situation, 
 extent, habits, and particular interests." 
 
 The debates of that period will show that the 
 effect of the slave votes upon the political in- 
 fluence of this part of the country, and the an- 
 ticipated variation of the weight of power to 
 the West, were subjects of great and just 
 jealousy to some of the best patriots in the 
 Northern and Eastern States. Suppose, then, 
 that it had been distinctly foreseen that, in 
 addition to the effect of this weight, the whole 
 population of a world beyond the Mississippi 
 was to be brought into this and the other 
 branch of the Legislature, to form our laws, con- 
 trol our rights, and decide our destiny. Sir, 
 can it be pretended that the patriots of that 
 day would for one moment have listened to it? 
 They were not madmen. They had not taken 
 degrees at the hospital of idiocy. They knew 
 the nature of man, and the effect of his com- 
 binations in political societies. They knew 
 that when the weight of particular sections of 
 a confederacy was greatly unequal, the result- 
 ing power would be abused ; that it was not in 
 the nature of man to exercise it with modera- 
 tion. The very extravagance of the intended 
 use is a conclusive evidence against the possi-
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 163 
 
 bility of the grant of such a power as is here 
 proposed. Why, sir, I have already heard of six 
 States, and some say there will be, at no great 
 distance of time, more. I have also heard that 
 the mouth of the Ohio will be far to the east of 
 the centre of the contemplated empire. If the 
 bill is passed, the principle is recognized. All 
 the rest are mere questions of expediency. It 
 is impossible such a power could be granted. 
 It was not for these men that our fathers 
 fought. It was not for them this Constitution 
 was adopted. You have no authority to throw the 
 rights and liberties and property of this people 
 into " hotch-pot " with the wild men on the 
 Missouri, nor with the mixed, though more re- 
 spectable, race of Anglo-Hispano-Gallo-Ameri- 
 cans, who bask on the sands in the mouth of the 
 Mississippi. I make no objection to these from 
 their want of moral qualities or political light. 
 The inhabitants of New Orleans are, I suppose, 
 like those of all other countries, some good, 
 some bad, some indifferent. 
 
 I will add only a few words, in relation to the 
 moral and political consequences of usurping 
 this power. I have said that it would be a 
 virtual dissolution of the Union ; and gentle- 
 men express great sensibility at the expression.
 
 164 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 But the true source of terror is not the declara- 
 tion I have made, but the deed you propose. 
 Is there a moral principle of public law better 
 settled, or more conformable to the plainest 
 suggestions of reason, than that the violation 
 of a contract by one of the parties may be con- 
 sidered as exempting the other from its obliga- 
 tions ? Suppose, in private life, thirteen form 
 a partnership, and ten of them undertake to 
 admit a new partner without the concurrence 
 of the other three, would it not be at their op- 
 tion to abandon the partnership, after so palpa- 
 ble an infringement of their rights ? How much 
 more, in the political partnership, where the 
 admission of new associates, without previous 
 authority, is so pregnant with obvious dangers 
 and evils ! Again, it is settled as a principle of 
 morality, among writers on public law, that no 
 person can be obliged, beyond his intent at the 
 time of contract. Now who believes, who dare 
 assert, that it was the intention of the people, 
 when they adopted this Constitution, to assign, 
 eventually, to New Orleans and Louisiana, a 
 portion of their political power ; and to invest 
 all the people those extensive regions might 
 hereafter contain, with an authority over them- 
 selves and their descendants ? When you throw
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 1 65 
 
 the weight of Louisiana into the scale, you de- 
 stroy the political equipoise contemplated at 
 the time of forming the contract. Can any man 
 venture to affirm that the people did intend 
 such a comprehension as you now, by construc- 
 tion, give it ? Or can it be concealed that, be- 
 yond its fair and acknowledged intent, such a 
 compact has no moral force ? If gentlemen are 
 so alarmed at the bare mention of the conse- 
 quences, let them abandon a measure which, 
 sooner or later, will produce them. How long 
 before the seeds of discontent will ripen, no man 
 can foretell. But it is the part of wisdom not 
 to multiply or scatter them. Do you suppose 
 the people of the Northern and Atlantic States 
 will, or ought to, look on with patience and see 
 Representatives and Senators, from the Red 
 River and Missouri, pouring themselves upon 
 this and the other floor, managing the concerns 
 of a sea-board fifteen hundred miles, at least, 
 from their residence ; and having a prepon- 
 derancy in councils, into which, constitutionally, 
 they could never have been admitted ? I have 
 no hesitation upon this point. They neither 
 will see it, nor ought to see it, with content. It 
 is the part of a wise man to foresee danger and 
 to hide himself. This great usurpation, which
 
 1 66 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 creeps into this House, under the plausible ap- 
 pearance of giving content to that important 
 point, New Orleans, starts up a gigantic power 
 to control the nation. Upon the actual condi- 
 tion of things, there is, there can be, no need of 
 concealment. It is apparent to the blindest 
 vision. By the course of nature, and conforma- 
 ble to the acknowledged principles of the Con- 
 stitution, the sceptre of power, in this country, 
 is passing toward the Northwest. Sir, there is 
 to this no objection. The right belongs to that 
 quarter of the country. Enjoy it ; it is yours. 
 Use the powers granted as you please. But 
 take care, in your haste after effectual domin- 
 ion, not to overload the scale by heaping it 
 with these new acquisitions. Grasp not too 
 eagerly at your purpose. In your speed after 
 uncontrolled sway, trample not down this Con- 
 stitution. * * * 
 
 New States are intended to be formed beyond 
 the Mississippi. There is no limit to men's 
 imaginations, on this subject, short of Califor- 
 nia and Columbia River. When I said that the 
 bill would justify a revolution and would pro- 
 duce it, I spoke of its principle and its practical 
 consequences. To this principle and those con- 
 sequences I would call the attention of this
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. l/ 
 
 House and nation. If it be about to introduce 
 a condition of things absolutely insupportable, 
 it becomes wise and honest men to anticipate 
 the evil, and to warn and prepare the people 
 against the event. I have no hesitation on the 
 subject. The extension of this principle to the 
 States contemplated beyond the Mississippi, 
 cannot, will not, and ought not to be borne. 
 And the sooner the people contemplate the 
 unavoidable result the better ; the more hope 
 that the evils may be palliated or removed. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, what is this liberty of which so 
 much is said ? Is it to walk about this earth, 
 to breathe this air, to partake the common 
 blessings of God's providence ? The beasts of 
 the field and the birds of the air unite with us 
 in such privileges as these. But man boasts a 
 purer and more ethereal temperature. His 
 mind grasps in its view the past and future, as 
 well as the present. We live not for ourselves 
 alone. That which we call liberty is that prin- 
 ciple on which the essential security of our 
 political condition depends. It results from 
 the limitations of our political system, pre- 
 scribed in the Constitution. These limitations, 
 so long as they are faithfully observed, main- 
 tain order, peace, and safety. When they are
 
 1 68 JO SI AH QUINCY. 
 
 violated, in essential particulars, all the concur- 
 rent spheres of authority rush against each 
 other ; and disorder, derangement, and convul- 
 sion are, sooner or later, the necessary conse- 
 quences. 
 
 With respect to this love of our Union, con- 
 cerning which so much sensibility is expressed, 
 I have no fears about analyzing its nature. 
 There is in it nothing of mystery. It depends 
 upon the qualities of that Union, and it results 
 from its effects upon our and our country's 
 happiness. It is valued for "that sober cer- 
 tainty of waking bliss" which it enables us to 
 realize. It grows out of the affections, and has 
 not, and cannot be made to have, any thing 
 universal in its nature. Sir, I confess it : the 
 first public love of my heart is the Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts. There is my fireside ; 
 there are the tombs of my ancestors 
 
 " Low lies that land, yet blest with fruitful stores, 
 Strong are her sons, though rocky are her shores ; 
 And none, ah ! none, so lovely to my sight, 
 Of all the lands which heaven o'erspreads with light." 
 
 The love of this Union grows out of this at- 
 tachment to my native soil, and is rooted in it. 
 I cherish it, because it affords the best external
 
 ADMISSION OF LOUISIANA. 169 
 
 hope of her peace, her prosperity, her indepen- 
 dence. I oppose this bill from no animosity to 
 the people of New Orleans ; but from the deep 
 conviction that it contains a principle incom- 
 patible with the liberties and safety of my 
 country. I have no concealment of my opinion. 
 The bill, if it passes, is a death-blow to the 
 Constitution. It may, afterward, linger ; but, 
 lingering, its fate will, at no very distant period, 
 be consummated.
 
 HENRY CLAY, 
 
 OF KENTUCKY. 
 (BORN 1777, DIED 1852.) 
 
 ON THE WAR OF l8l2 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 JAN. 8, 1813. 
 
 SIR, gentlemen appear to me to forget that 
 they stand on American soil ; that they are not 
 in the British House of Commons, but in the 
 chamber of the House of Representatives of 
 the United States ; that we have nothing to do 
 with the affairs of Europe, the partition of terri- 
 tory and sovereignty there, except so far as 
 these things affect the interests of our own 
 country. Gentlemen transform themselves into 
 the Burkes, Chathams, and Pitts of another 
 country, and, forgetting, from honest zeal, the 
 interests of America, engage with European 
 sensibility in the discussion of European inter- 
 ests. If gentlemen ask me whether I do not 
 view with regret and horror the concentration 
 of such vast power in the hands of Bona- 
 170
 
 ON THE WAR OF 1812. 171 
 
 parte, I reply that I do. I regret to see the 
 Emperor of China holding such immense sway 
 over the fortunes of millions of our species. I 
 regret to see Great Britain possessing so un- 
 controlled a command overall the waters of the 
 globe. If I had the ability to distribute among 
 the nations of Europe their several portions of 
 power and of sovereignty, I would say that 
 Holland should be resuscitated and given the 
 weight she enjoyed in the days of her De Witts. 
 I would confine France within her natural 
 boundaries, the Alps, Pyrenees, and the Rhine, 
 and make her a secondary naval power only. 
 I would abridge the British maritime power, 
 raise Prussia and Austria to their original con- 
 dition, and preserve the integrity of the Empire 
 of Russia. But these are speculations. I look 
 at the political transactions of Europe, with the 
 single exception of their possible bearing upon 
 us, as I do at the history of other countries and 
 other times. I do not survey them with half 
 the interest that I do the movements in South 
 America. Our political relation with them is 
 much less important than it is supposed to be. 
 I have no fears of French or English subjuga- 
 tion. If we are united we are too powerful for 
 the mightiest nation in Europe or all Europe
 
 1/2 HENRY CLAY. 
 
 combined. If we are separated and torn asun- 
 der, we shall become an easy prey to the weak- 
 est of them. In the latter dreadful contingency 
 our country will not be worth preserving. 
 
 Next to the notice which the opposition has 
 found itself called upon to bestow upon the 
 French Emperor, a distinguished citizen of 
 Virginia, formerly President of the United 
 States, has never for a moment failed to receive 
 their kindest and most repectful attention. An 
 honorable gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
 Quincy), of whom I am sorry to say it becomes 
 necessary for me, in the course of my remarks, 
 to take some notice, has alluded to him in a re- 
 markable manner. Neither his retirement from 
 public office, his eminent services, nor his ad- 
 vanced age, can exempt this patriot from the 
 coarse assaults of party malevolence. No, sir. 
 In 1801 he snatched from the rude hand of 
 usurpation the violated Constitution of his 
 country, and that is his crime. He preserved 
 that instrument, in form, and substance, and 
 spirit, a precious inheritance for generations to 
 come, and for this he can never be forgiven. 
 How vain and impotent is party rage, directed 
 against such a man. He is not more elevated 
 by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his
 
 ON THE WAR OF 1812. 173 
 
 own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the 
 serenity of his mind, and the consciousness of 
 a well-spent life, above the malignant passions 
 and bitter feelings of the day. No ! his own 
 beloved Monticello is not less moved by the 
 storms that beat against its sides than is this 
 illustrious man by the howlings of the whole 
 British pack, set loose from the Essex kennel. 
 When the gentleman to whom I have been 
 compelled to allude shall have mingled his dust 
 with that of his abused ancestors, when he shall 
 have been consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives 
 at all, shall live only in the treasonable annals 
 of a certain junto, the name of Jefferson will be 
 hailed with gratitude, his memory honored and 
 cherished as the second founder of the liberties 
 of the people, and the period of his administra- 
 tion will be looked back to as one of the happi- 
 est and brightest epochs of American history ; 
 an oasis in the midst of a sandy desert. But I 
 beg the gentleman's pardon ; he has already se- 
 cured to himself a more imperishable fame than 
 I had supposed ; I think it was about four years 
 that he submitted to the House of Representa- 
 tives an initiative proposition for the impeach- 
 ment of Mr. Jefferson. The house conde- 
 scended to consider it. The gentleman de-
 
 174 HENRY CLAY. 
 
 bated it with his usual temper, moderation, and 
 urbanity. The house decided upon it in 
 the most solemn manner, and, although the 
 gentleman had somehow obtained a second, the 
 final vote stood one for, and one hundred and 
 seventeen against, the proposition. * * * 
 
 But sir, I must speak of another subject, 
 which I never think of but with feelings of the 
 deepest awe. The gentleman from Massachu- 
 setts, in imitation of some of his predecessors 
 of 1799, has entertained us with a picture of 
 cabinet plots, presidential plots, and all sorts of 
 plots, which have been engendered by the 
 diseased state of the gentleman's imagination. 
 1 wish, sir, that another plot, of a much 
 more serious and alarming character a plot 
 that aims at the dismemberment of our Union 
 had only the same imaginary existence. 
 But no man, who has paid any attention 
 to the tone of certain prints and to trans- 
 actions in a particular quarter of the Union, 
 for several years past, can doubt the exist- 
 ence of such a plot. It was far, very far 
 from my intention to charge the opposition 
 with such a design. No, I believe them gen- 
 erally incapable of it. But I cannot say as 
 much for some who have been unworthily as-
 
 ON THE WAR OF 1812. 1/5 
 
 sociated with them in the quarter of the Union 
 to which I have referred. The gentleman can- 
 not have forgotten his own sentiment, uttered 
 even on the floor of this house, " peaceably if 
 we can, forcibly if we must," nearly at the very 
 time Henry's mission was undertaken. The 
 flagitiousness of that embassy had been at- 
 tempted to be concealed by directing the pub- 
 lic attention to the price which, the gentleman 
 says, was given for the disclosure. As if any 
 price could change the atrociousness of the at- 
 tempt on the part of Great Britain, or could ex- 
 tenuate, in the slightest degree, the offence of 
 those citizens, who entertained and delib- 
 erated on a proposition so infamous and un- 
 natural * * * But, sir, I will quit this un- 
 pleasant subject. * * * 
 
 The war was declared because Great Britain 
 arrogated to herself the pretension of regulating 
 our foreign trade, under the delusive name of 
 retaliatory orders in council a pretension by 
 which she undertook to proclaim to American 
 enterprise, " thus far shalt thou go, and no 
 further " orders which she refused to revoke 
 after the alleged cause of their enactment had 
 ceased ; because she persisted in the practice of 
 impressing American seamen ; because she had
 
 1 76 HENRY CLAY. 
 
 instigated the Indians to commit hostilities 
 against us ; and because she refused indemnity 
 for her past injuries upon our commerce. I 
 throw out of the question other wrongs. So 
 undeniable were the causes of the war, so 
 powerfully did they address themselves to the 
 feelings of the whole American people, that 
 when the bill was pending before this House, 
 gentlemen in the opposition, although provoked 
 to debate, would not, or could not, utter one 
 syllable against it. It is true, they wrapped 
 themselves up in sullen silence, pretending they 
 did not choose to debate such a question in 
 secret session. While speaking of the proceed- 
 ings on that occasion I beg to be permitted to 
 advert to another fact which transpired an 
 important fact, material for the nation to know, 
 and which I have often regretted had not been 
 spread upon our journals. My honorable col- 
 league (Mr. McKee) moved, in committee of 
 the whole, to comprehend France in the war ; 
 and when the question was taken upon the 
 proposition, there appeared but ten votes in 
 support of it, of whom seven belonged to 
 this side of the house, and three only to the 
 other. * * * 
 
 It is not to the British principle (of alle-
 
 ON THE WAR OF 1812. 177 
 
 giance), objectionable as it is, that we are alone 
 to look ; it is to her practice, no matter what 
 guise she puts on. It is in vain to assert the 
 inviolability of the obligation of allegiance. It 
 is in vain to set up the plea of necessity, and to 
 allege that she cannot exist without the im- 
 pressment of HER seamen. The naked truth 
 is, she comes, by her press-gangs, on board of 
 our vessels, seizes OUR native as well as natural- 
 ized seamen, and drags them into her service. 
 It is the case, then, of the assertion of an 
 erroneous principle, and of a practice not con- 
 formable to the asserted principle a principle 
 which, if it were theoretically right, must be 
 forever practically wrong a practice which can 
 obtain countenance from no principle whatever, 
 and to submit to which, on our part, would 
 betray the most abject degradation. We are 
 told, by gentlemen in the opposition, that 
 government has not done all that was in- 
 cumbent on it to do, to avoid just cause of 
 complaint on the part of Great Britain ; that 
 in particular the certificates of protection, 
 authorized by the act of 1796, are fraudulently 
 used. Sir, government has done too much in 
 granting those paper protections. I can never 
 think of them without being shocked. They
 
 1/8 HENRY CLAY. 
 
 resemble the passes which the master grants to 
 his negro slave : " Let the bearer, Mungo, pass 
 and repass without molestation." What do 
 they imply ? That Great Britain has a right to 
 seize all who are not provided with them. 
 From their very nature, they must be liable to 
 abuse on both sides. If Great Britain desires a 
 mark, by which she can know her own subjects, 
 let her give them an ear-mark. The colors 
 that float from the mast-head should be the 
 credentials of our seamen. There is no safety 
 to us, and the gentlemen have shown it, but in 
 the rule that all who sail under the flag (not 
 being enemies), are protected by the flag. It is 
 impossible that this country should ever aban- 
 don the gallant tars who have won for us such 
 splendid trophies. Let me suppose that the 
 genius of Columbia should visit one of them in 
 his oppressor's prison, and attempt to reconcile 
 him to his forlorn and wretched condition. 
 She would say to him, in the language of gentle- 
 men on the other side : " Great Britain intends 
 you no harm ; she did not mean to impress 
 you, but one of her own subjects ; having taken 
 you by mistake, I will remonstrate, and try to 
 prevail upon her, by peaceable means, to release 
 you ; but I cannot, my son, fight for you." If
 
 ON THE WAR OF 1812. 1/9 
 
 he did not consider this mere mockery, the 
 poor tar would address her judgment and say : 
 " You owe me, my country, protection ; I owe 
 you, in return, obedience. I am no British 
 subject ; I am a native of old Massachusetts, 
 where lived my aged father, my wife, my chil- 
 dren. I have faithfully discharged my duty. 
 Will you refuse to do yours?" Appealing to 
 her passions, he would continue : " I lost this 
 eye in fighting under Truxton, with the Insur- 
 gente ; I got this scar before Tripoli ; I broke 
 this leg on board the Constitution, when the 
 Guerrtire struck." * * * I will not imagine 
 the dreadful catastrophe to which he would be 
 driven by an abandonment of him to his op- 
 pressor. It will not be, it cannot be, that his 
 country will refuse him protection. * * * 
 
 An honorable peace is attainable only by an 
 efficient war. My plan would be to call out 
 the ample resources of the country, give them 
 a judicious direction, prosecute the war with 
 the utmost vigor, strike wherever we can reach 
 the enemy, at sea or on land, and negotiate the 
 terms of a peace at Quebec or at Halifax. We 
 are told that England is a proud and lofty 
 nation, which, disdaining to wait for danger, 
 meets it half way. Haughty as she is we
 
 180 HENRY CLAY. 
 
 triumphed over her once, and, if we do not 
 listen to the counsels of timidity and despair, 
 we shall again prevail. In such a cause, with 
 the aid of Providence, we must come out 
 crowned with success; but, if we fail, let us 
 fail like men, lash ourselves to our gallant 
 tars, and expire together in one common 
 struggle, fighting for FREE TRADE AND SEA- 
 MEN'S RIGHTS.
 
 IV.
 
 IV. 
 THE RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 IN spite of execrable financial management, 
 of the criminal blunders of political army offi- 
 cers, and of consequent defeats on land, and 
 quite apart from brilliant sea-fights and the 
 New Orleans victory, the war of 1812 was of 
 incalculable benefit to the United States. It 
 
 
 
 marks more particularly the point at which the 
 already established democracy began to shade 
 off into a real nationality. 
 
 The Democratic party began its career as a 
 States-rights party. Possession of national 
 power had so far modified the practical opera- 
 tion of its tenets that it had not hesitated to 
 carry out a national policy, and even wage a 
 desperate war, in flat opposition to the will of 
 one section of the Union, comprising five of its 
 most influential States ; and, when the Hartford 
 183
 
 1 84 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 Convention was suspected of a design to put 
 the New England opposition to the war into a 
 forcible veto, there were many indications that 
 the dominant party was fully prepared to an- 
 swer by a forcible materialization of the na- 
 tional will. In the North and West, at least, 
 the old States-rights formulas never carried a 
 real vitality beyond the war of 1812. Men still 
 spoke of " sovereign States," and prided them- 
 selves on the difference between the " volun- 
 tary union of States " and the effete despotisms 
 of Europe ; but the ghost of the Hartford Con- 
 vention had laid very many more dangerous 
 ghosts in the section in which it had appeared. 
 The theatre of the war, now filled with com- 
 fortable farms and populous cities, was then 
 less known than the Territories of Idaho and 
 Arizona are in 1884. There were no roads, and 
 the transportation of provisions for the troops, 
 of guns, ammunition, and stores for the lake 
 navies, was one of the most difficult of the 
 problems which the National Government was 
 called upon to solve. It cannot be said that
 
 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 1 8$ 
 
 the solution was successfully reached, for the 
 blunders in transportation were among the 
 most costly, exasperating, and dangerous of the 
 war. But the efforts to reach it provided the 
 impulse which soon after resulted in the settle- 
 ment of Western New York, the appearance of 
 the germs of such flourishing cities as Buffalo, 
 Rochester, and Syracuse, the opening up of the 
 Southwest Territory, between Tennessee and 
 New Orleans, and the rapid admission of the 
 new States of Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, and 
 Missouri. But the impulse did not stop here. 
 The inconveniences and dangers arising from 
 the possession of a vast territory with utterly 
 inadequate means of communication had been 
 brought so plainly to public view by the war 
 that the question of communication influenced 
 politics in every direction. In New York it 
 took shape in the construction of the Erie 
 Canal (finished in 1825). In States farther west 
 and south, the loaning of the public credit to 
 enterprises of the nature of the Erie Canal in- 
 creased until the panic of 1837 introduced
 
 1 86 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 " repudiation " into American politics. In 
 national politics, the necessity of a general sys- 
 tem of canals and roads, as a means of military 
 defence, was at first admitted by all, even by 
 Calhoun, was gradually rejected by the stricter 
 constructionists of the Constitution, and finally 
 became a tenet of the National Republican 
 party, headed by John Quincy Adams and Clay 
 (1825-29), and of its greater successor the Whig 
 party, headed by Clay. This idea of Internal 
 Improvements at national expense, though 
 suggested by Gallatin and Clay in 1806-08, 
 only became a political question when the war 
 had forced it upon public attention ; and it has 
 not yet entirely disappeared. 
 
 The maintenance of such a system required 
 money, and a high tariff of duties on imports 
 was a necessary concomitant to Internal Im- 
 provements. The germ of this system was also 
 a product of the war of 1812. Hamilton had 
 proposed it twenty years before ; and the first 
 American tariff act had declared that its object 
 was the encouragement of American manufac-
 
 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 187 
 
 tures. But the system had never been effectively 
 introduced until the war and the blockade had 
 forced American manufactures into existence. 
 Peace brought competition with British manu- 
 facturers, and the American manufacturers be- 
 gan to call for protection. The tariff of 1816 
 contained the principle of Protection, but only 
 carried it into practice far enough to induce the 
 manufacturers to rely on the dominant party for 
 more of it. This expectation, rather than the 
 Federalist opposition to the war, is the ex- 
 planation of the immediate and rapid decline 
 of the Federal party in New England. Con- 
 tinued effort brought about the tariff of 1824, 
 which was more protective ; the tariff of 1828, 
 which was still more protective ; and the tariff 
 of 1830, which reduced the protective element 
 to a system. 
 
 The two sections, North and South, had 
 been very much alike until the war called the 
 principle of growth into activity. The slave 
 system of labor, which had fallen in the North 
 and had survived and been made still more
 
 1 88 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 profitable in the South by Whitney's invention 
 of the cotton gin in 1793, shut the South off 
 from almost all share in the new life. That 
 section had a monopoly of the cotton culture, 
 and the present profit of slave labor blinded it 
 to the ultimate consequences of it. The slave 
 was fit for rude agriculture alone ; he could not 
 be employed in manufactures, or in any labor 
 which required intelligence; and the slave- 
 owner, while he desired manufactures, did not 
 dare to cultivate the necessary intelligence in his 
 own slaves. The South could therefore find no 
 profit in protection, and yet it could not with 
 dignity admit that its slave system precluded it 
 from the advantages of protection, or base its 
 opposition to protection wholly on economic 
 grounds. Its only recourse was the constitu- 
 tional ground of the lack of power of Congress 
 to pass a protective tariff, and this brought up 
 again the question which had evolved the Ken- 
 tucky resolutions of 1798-9. Calhoun, with 
 pitiless logic, developed them into a scheme of 
 constitutional Nullification. Under his lead,
 
 RISE OF NATIONALITY, 189 
 
 South Carolina, in 1832, declared through her 
 State Convention that the protective tariff acts 
 were no law, nor binding on the State, its offi- 
 cers or citizens. President Jackson, while he 
 was ready and willing to suppress any such re- 
 bellion by force, was not sorry to see his adher- 
 ents in Congress make use of it to overthrow 
 protection ; and a " compromise tariff," to which 
 the protectionists agreed, was passed in 1833. 
 It reduced the duties by an annual percentage 
 for ten years. The nullifiers claimed this as a 
 triumph, and formally repealed the ordinance of 
 nullification, as if it had accomplished its ob- 
 ject. But, in its real intent, it had failed 
 wretchedly. It had asserted State sovereignty 
 through the State's proper voice of a conven- 
 tion. When the time fixed for the execution 
 of the ordinance arrived, Jackson's intention of 
 taking the State's sovereignty by the throat had 
 become so evident that an unofficial meeting of 
 nullifiers suspended the ordinance until the pas- 
 sage of the compromise tariff had made it un- 
 necessary. For the first time, the force of a
 
 190 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 State and the national force had approached 
 threateningly near collision, and no State ever 
 tried it again. When the tariff of 1842 re-in- 
 troduced the principle of protection, no one 
 thought of taking the broken weapon of nulli- 
 fication from its resting-place ; and secession 
 was finally attempted only as a sectional move- 
 ment, not as the expression of the will of a 
 State, but as a concerted revolution by a num- 
 ber of States. It seems certain that nationality 
 had attained force enough, even in 1833, to 
 have put State sovereignty forever under its 
 feet; and that but for the cohesive sectional 
 force of slavery and its interests, the develop- 
 ment of nationality would have been undis- 
 puted for the future. 
 
 New conditions were increasing the growth 
 of the North and West, and their separation 
 from the South in national life, even when nul- 
 lification was in its death struggle. The acqui- 
 sition of Louisiana in 1803 had been followed 
 in 1807 by Fulton's invention of the steamboat, 
 the most important factor in carrying immigra-
 
 RISE OF NATIONALITY. IQI 
 
 tion into the new territories and opening them 
 up to settlement. But the steamboat could 
 not quite bridge over the gap between the Alle- 
 ghanies and the Mississippi. Internal improve- 
 ments, canals, and improved roads were not 
 quite the instrument that was needed. It was 
 found at last in the introduction of the railway 
 into the United States in 1830-32. This 
 proved to be an agent which could solve every 
 difficulty except its own. It could bridge over 
 every gap ; it could make profit of its own, and 
 make profitable that which had before been 
 unprofitable. It placed immigrants where the 
 steamboat, canal, and road could at last be of 
 the highest utility to them ; it developed the 
 great West with startling rapidity ; it increased 
 the sale of government lands so rapidly that in 
 a few years the debt of the United States was 
 paid off, and the surplus became, for the first 
 time, a source of political embarrassment. In 
 a few years further, aided by revolutionary 
 troubles in Europe, immigration became a great 
 stream, which poured into and altered the con-
 
 I9 2 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 ditions of every part of the North and West. 
 The stream was altogether nationalizing in its 
 nature. The immigrant came to the United 
 States, not to a particular State. To him, the 
 country was greater than any State ; even that 
 of his adoption. Labor conditions excluded 
 the South from this element of progress also. 
 Not only were the railroads of the South ham- 
 pered in every point by the old difficulty of 
 slave labor; immigration and free labor 
 shunned slave soil as if the plague were there 
 prevalent. Year after year the North and West 
 became more national in their prejudices and 
 modes of thought and action ; while the South 
 remained little changed, except by a natural 
 reactionary drift toward a more extreme coloni- 
 alism. The natural result, in the next period 
 was the development of a quasi nationality in 
 the South itself. 
 
 The introduction of the railway had brought 
 its own difficulties, though these were not felt 
 severely until after years. In the continent of 
 Europe, the governments carefully retained
 
 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 1Q3 
 
 their powers of eminent domain when the new 
 system was introduced. The necessary land 
 was loaned to the railways for a term of years, 
 at the expiration of which the railway was to 
 revert to the State ; and railway troubles were 
 non-existent, or comparatively tractable. In 
 the United States, as in Great Britain, free 
 right of incorporation was supplemented by 
 what was really a gift of the power of eminent 
 domain. The necessary land became the prop- 
 erty of the corporations in fee, and it has been 
 found almost equally difficult to revoke the 
 gift or to introduce a railway control. 
 
 Democracy took a new and extreme line of 
 development under its alliance with nationality. 
 As the dominant party, about 1827-8, became 
 divided into two parties, the new parties felt 
 the democratic influence as neither of their 
 predecessors had felt it. Nominations, which 
 had been made by cliques of legislators or Con- 
 gressmen, began to be made by popular dele- 
 gate conventions about 1825. Before 1835, 
 national, State, and local conventions had been
 
 194 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 
 
 united into parties of the modern type. With 
 them came the pseudo democratic idea of " ro- 
 tation in office," introduced into national poli- 
 tics by President Jackson, in 1829, and adopted 
 by succeeding administrations. There were 
 also some attempts to do away with the elec- 
 toral system, and to make the federal judiciary 
 elective, or to impose on it some other term of 
 office than good behavior ; but these had 
 neither success nor encouragement. 
 
 The financial errors of the war of 1812 had 
 fairly compelled the re-establishment of the 
 Bank of the United States in 1816, with a 
 charter for twenty years, and the control of the 
 deposits of national revenue. Soon after Jack- 
 son's inauguration, the managers of the new 
 democratic party came into collision with the 
 bank on the appointment of a subordinate 
 agent. It very soon became evident that the 
 bank could not exist in the new political atmos- 
 phere. It was driven into politics ; a new char- 
 ter was vetoed in 1832 ; and after one of the 
 bitterest struggles of our history, the bank
 
 RISE OF NATIONALITY. 1 95 
 
 ceased to exist as a government institution in 
 1836. The reason for its fall, however dis- 
 guised by attendant circumstances, was really 
 its lack of harmony with the national-demo- 
 cratic environment which had overtaken it. 
 
 The anti-slavery agitation, which began in 
 1830, was as evidently a product of the new 
 phase of democracy, but will fall more naturally 
 under the next period. 
 
 Webster's reply to Hayne has been taken as 
 the best illustration of that thoroughly national 
 feeling which was impossible before the war of 
 1812, and increasingly more common after it. 
 It has been necessary to preface it with Hayne's 
 speech, in order to have a clear understanding of 
 parts of Webster's ; but it has not been possible 
 to omit Calhoun's speech, as a defence of his 
 scheme of nullification, and as an exemplifica- 
 tion of the reaction toward colonialism with 
 which the South met the national development. 
 It has not seemed necessary to include ex- 
 amples of the orations called forth by the tem- 
 porary political issues of the time.
 
 JOHN C. CALHOUN, 
 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 (BORN 1782, DIED 1850.) 
 
 ON NULLIFICATION AND THE FORCE BILL, IN THE 
 UNITED STATES SENATE, FEB. 15, 1833. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT : 
 
 At the last session of Congress, it was avowed 
 on all sides that the public debt, as to all prac- 
 tical purposes, was in fact paid, the small sur- 
 plus remaining being nearly covered by the 
 money in the Treasury and the bonds for 
 duties which had already accrued ; but with 
 the arrival of this event our last hope was 
 doomed to be disappointed. After a long 
 session of many months, and the most earnest 
 effort on the part of South Carolina and the 
 other Southern States to obtain relief, all that 
 could be effected was a small reduction in the 
 amount of the duties, but a reduction of such 
 a character that, while it diminished the 
 196
 
 NULLIFICA TION. iqj 
 
 amount of burden, it distributed that burden 
 more unequally than even the obnoxious act of 
 1828 ; reversing the principle adopted by the 
 bill of 1816, of laying higher duties on the un- 
 protected than the protected articles, by re- 
 pealing almost entirely the duties laid upon the 
 former, and imposing the burden almost en- 
 tirely on the latter. It was thus that, instead 
 of relief instead of an equal distribution of 
 burdens and benefits of the government, on 
 the payment of the debt, as had been fondly 
 anticipated, the duties were so arranged as to 
 be, in fact, bounties on one side and taxation 
 on the other ; thus placing the two great sec- 
 tions of the country in direct conflict in refer- 
 ence to its fiscal action, and thereby letting in 
 that flood of political corruption which threat- 
 ens to sweep away our Constitution and our 
 liberty. 
 
 This unequal and unjust arrangement was 
 pronounced, both by the administration, 
 through its proper organ, the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and by the opposition, to be a per- 
 manent adjustment ; and it was thus that all 
 hope of relief through the action of the Gene- 
 ral Government terminated ; and the crisis so 
 long apprehended at length arrived, at which
 
 198 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 the State was compelled to choose between 
 absolute acquiescence in a ruinous system of 
 oppression, or a resort to her reserved powers 
 powers of which she alone was the rightful 
 judge, and which only, in this momentous 
 juncture, could save her. She determined on 
 the latter. 
 
 The consent of two thirds of her Legislature 
 was necessary for the call of a convention, which 
 was considered the only legitimate organ 
 through which the people, in their sovereignty, 
 could speak. After an arduous struggle the 
 States-right party succeeded ; more than two 
 thirds of both branches of the Legislature 
 favorable to a convention were elected ; a con- 
 vention was called the ordinance adopted. 
 The convention was succeeded by a meeting of 
 the Legislature, when the laws to carry the 
 ordinance into execution were enacted all of 
 which have been communicated by the Presi- 
 dent, have been referred to the Committee on 
 the Judiciary, and this bill is the result of their 
 labor. 
 
 Having now corrected some of the prominent 
 misrepresentations as to the nature of this con- 
 troversy, and given a rapid sketch of the move- 
 ment of the State in reference to it, I will
 
 NULLIFICA TION. 199 
 
 next proceed to notice some objections con- 
 nected with the ordinance and the proceedings 
 under it. 
 
 The first and most prominent of these is 
 directed against what is called the test oath, 
 which an effort has been made to render odious. 
 So far from deserving the denunciation that 
 has been levelled against it, I view this pro- 
 vision of the ordinance as but the natural result 
 of the doctrines entertained by the State, and 
 the position which she occupies. The people 
 of Carolina believe that the Union is a union 
 of States, and not of individuals ; that it was 
 formed by the States, and that the citizens of 
 the several States were bound to it through the 
 acts of their several States ; that each State 
 ratified the Constitution for itself, and that it 
 was only by such ratification of a State that 
 any obligation was imposed upon its citizens. 
 Thus believing, it is the opinion of the people 
 of Carolina that it belongs to the State which 
 has imposed the obligation to declare, in the 
 last resort, the extent of this obligation, as far 
 as her citizens are concerned ; and this upon 
 the plain principles which exist in all analogous 
 cases of compact between sovereign bodies. 
 On this principle the people of the State, act-
 
 200 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 ing in their sovereign capacity in convention, 
 precisely as they did in the adoption of their 
 own and the Federal Constitution, have de- 
 clared, by the ordinance, that the acts of Con- 
 gress which imposed duties under the authority 
 to lay imposts, were acts not for revenue, as in- 
 tended by the Constitution, but for protection, 
 and therefore null and void. The ordinance 
 thus enacted by the people of the State them- 
 selves, acting as a sovereign community, is as 
 obligatory on the citizens of the State as any 
 portion of the Constitution. In prescribing, 
 then, the oath to obey the ordinance, no more 
 was done than to prescribe an oath to obey the 
 Constitution. It is, in fact, but a particular 
 oath of allegiance, and in every respect similar 
 to that which is prescribed, under the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, to be administered 
 to all the officers of the State and Federal 
 Governments ; and is no more deserving the 
 harsh and bitter epithets which have been 
 heaped upon it than that or any similar oath. 
 It ought to be borne in mind that, according 
 to the opinion which prevails in Carolina, the 
 right of resistance to the unconstitutional acts 
 of Congress belongs to the State, and not to 
 her individual citizens ; and that, though the
 
 NULLIFICATION. 2OI 
 
 latter may, in a mere question of meum and 
 tuum, resist through the courts an unconstitu- 
 tional encroachment upon their rights, yet the 
 final stand against usurpation rests not with 
 them, but with the State of which they are 
 members ; and such act of resistance by a State 
 binds the conscience and allegiance of the citi- 
 zen. But there appears to be a general misap- 
 prehension as to the extent to which the State 
 has acted under this part of the ordinance. 
 Instead of sweeping every officer by a general 
 proscription of the minority, as has been repre- 
 sented in debate, as far as my knowledge ex- 
 tends, not a single individual has been removed. 
 The State has, in fact, acted with the greatest 
 tenderness, all circumstances considered, toward 
 citizens who differed from the majority; and, 
 in that spirit, has directed the oath to be ad- 
 ministered only in the case of some official act 
 directed to be performed in which obedience to 
 the ordinance is involved. * * * 
 
 It is next objected that the enforcing acts 
 have legislated the United States out of South 
 Carolina. I have already replied to this objec- 
 tion on another occasion, and will now but re- 
 peat what I then said : that they have been 
 legislated out only to the extent that they had
 
 202 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 no fight to enter. The Constitution has ad- 
 mitted the jurisdiction of the United States 
 within the limits of the several States only so 
 far as the delegated powers authorize ; beyond 
 that they are intruders, and may rightfully be 
 expelled; and that they have been efficiently 
 expelled by the legislation of the State through 
 her civil process, as has been acknowledged on 
 all sides in the debate, is only a confirmation of 
 the truth of the doctrine for which the majority 
 in Carolina have contended. 
 
 The very point at issue between the two 
 parties there is, whether nullification is a peace- 
 ful and an efficient remedy against an unconsti- 
 tutional act of the General Government, and 
 may be asserted, as such, through the State 
 tribunals. Both parties agree that the acts 
 against which it is directed are unconstitutional 
 and oppressive. The controversy is only as to 
 the means by which our citizens may be pro- 
 tected against the acknowledged encroachments 
 on their rights. This being the point at issue 
 between the parties, and the very object of the 
 majority being an efficient protection of the 
 citizens through the State tribunals, the meas- 
 ures adopted to enforce the ordinance, of course 
 received the most decisive character. We were
 
 NULLIFICA TION. 203 
 
 not children, to act by halves. Yet for acting 
 thus efficiently the State is denounced, and this 
 bill reported, to overrule, by military force, the 
 civil tribunal and civil process of the State ! 
 Sir, I consider this bill, and the arguments 
 which have been urged on this floor in its sup- 
 port, as the most triumphant acknowledgment 
 that nullification is peaceful and efficient, and 
 so deeply intrenched in the principles of our sys- 
 tem, that it cannot be assailed but by pros- 
 trating the Constitution, and substituting the 
 supremacy of military force in lieu of the 
 supremacy of the laws. In fact, the advocates 
 of this bill refute their own argument. They 
 tell us that the ordinance is unconstitutional ; 
 that it infracts the constitution of South Caro- 
 lina, although, to me, the objection appears ab- 
 surd, as it was adopted by the very authority 
 which adopted the constitution itself. They 
 also tell us that the Supreme Court is the ap- 
 pointed arbiter of all controversies between a 
 State and the General Government. Why, 
 then, do they not leave this controversy to that 
 tribunal? Why do they not confide to them 
 the abrogation of the ordinance, and the laws 
 made in pursuance of it, and the assertion of 
 that supremacy which they claim for the laws
 
 2O4 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 of Congress? The State stands pledged to 
 resist no process of the court. Why, then, con- 
 fer on the President the extensive and unlimited 
 powers provided in this bill? Why authorize 
 him to use military force to arrest the civil pro- 
 cess of the State ? But one answer can be 
 given : That, in a contest between the State and 
 the General Government, if the resistance be 
 limited on both sides to the civil process, the 
 State, by its inherent sovereignty, standing 
 upon its reserved powers, will prove too power- 
 ful in such a controversy, and must triumph 
 over the Federal Government, sustained by its 
 delegated and limited authority; and in this 
 answer we have an acknowledgment of the 
 truth of those great principles for which the 
 State has so firmly and nobly contended. * * * 
 Notwithstanding all that has been said, I 
 may say that neither the Senator from Dela- 
 ware (Mr. Clayton), nor any other who has 
 spoken on the same side, has directly and fairly 
 met the great question at issue : Is this a Fed- 
 eral Union ? a union of States, as distinct from 
 that of individuals ? Is the sovereignty in the 
 several States, or in the American people in 
 the aggregate? The very language which we 
 are compelled to use when speaking of our
 
 NULLIFTCA TION. 2O5 
 
 political institutions, affords proof conclusive as 
 to its real character. The terms union, federal, 
 united, all imply a combination of sovereign- 
 ties, a confederation of States. They never 
 apply to an association of individuals. Who 
 ever heard of the United State of New 
 York, of Massachusetts, or of Virginia ? 
 Who ever heard the term federal or union 
 applied to the aggregation of individuals 
 into one community ? Nor is the other 
 point less clear that the sovereignty is in 
 the several States, and that our system is a 
 union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a 
 constitutional compact, and not of a divided 
 sovereignty between the States severally and 
 the United States? In spite of all that has 
 been said, I maintain that sovereignty is in its 
 nature indivisible. It is the supreme power in 
 a State, and we might just as well speak of half 
 a square, or half of a triangle, as of half a sov- 
 ereignty. It is a gross error to confound the 
 exercise of sovereign powers with sovereignty 
 itself, or the delegation of such powers with 
 the surrender of them. A sovereign may dele- 
 gate his powers to be exercised by as many 
 agents as he may think proper, under such con- 
 ditions and with such limitations as he may im-
 
 206 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 pose ; but to surrender any portion of his sov- 
 ereignty to another is to annihilate the whole. 
 The Senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton) calls 
 this metaphysical reasoning, which he says he 
 cannot comprehend. If by metaphysics he 
 means that scholastic refinement which makes 
 distinctions without difference, no one can hold 
 it in more utter contempt than I do ; but if, on 
 the contrary, he means the power of analysis 
 and combination that power which reduces the 
 most complex idea into its elements, which 
 traces causes to their first principle, and, by 
 the power of generalization and combination, 
 unites the whole in one harmonious system 
 then, so far from deserving contempt, it is the 
 highest attribute of the human mind. It is the 
 power which raises man above the brute 
 which distinguishes his faculties from mere sa- 
 gacity, which he holds in common with inferior 
 animals. It is this power which has raised the 
 astronomer from being a mere gazer at the 
 stars to the high intellectual eminence of a New- 
 ton or a Laplace, and astronomy itself from a 
 mere observation of insulated facts into that 
 noble science which displays to our admiration 
 the system of the universe. And shall this 
 high power of the mind, which has effected
 
 NULLIFICA TION. 207 
 
 such wonders when directed to the laws which 
 control the material world, be forever prohib- 
 ited, under a senseless cry of metaphysics, 
 from being applied to the high purposes of po- 
 litical science and legislation ? I hold them to 
 be subject to laws as fixed as matter itself, and 
 to be as fit a subject for the application of the 
 highest intellectual power. Denunciation may, 
 indeed fall upon the philosophical inquirer into 
 these first principles, as it did upon Galileo and 
 Bacon, when they first unfolded the great dis- 
 coveries which have immortalized their names ; 
 but the time will come when truth will prevail 
 in spite of prejudice and denunciation, and 
 when politics and legislation will be considered 
 as much a science as astronomy and chemistry. 
 In connection with this part of the subject, I 
 understood the Senator from Virginia (Mr. 
 Rives) to say that sovereignty was divided, and 
 that a portion remained with the States sev- 
 erally, and that the residue was vested in the 
 Union. By Union, I suppose the Senator 
 meant the United States. If such be his 
 meaning if he intended to affirm that the 
 sovereignty was in the twenty-four States, in 
 whatever light he may view them, our opinions 
 will not disagree ; but according to my con-
 
 208 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 ception, the whole sovereignty is in the several 
 States, while the exercise of sovereign power is 
 divided a part being exercised under com- 
 pact, through this General Government, and 
 the residue through the separate State Govern- 
 ments. But if the Senator from Virginia (Mr. 
 Rives) means to assert that the twenty-four 
 States form but one community, with a single 
 sovereign power as to the objects of the Union, 
 it will be but the revival of the old question, of 
 whether the Union is a union between States, 
 as distinct communities, or a mere aggregate of 
 the American people, as a mass of individuals ; 
 and in this light his opinions would lead directly 
 to consolidation. * * * 
 
 Disguise it as you may, the controversy is 
 one between power and liberty ; and I tell the 
 gentlemen who are opposed to me, that, as 
 strong as may be the love of power on their 
 side, the love of liberty is still stronger on ours. 
 History furnishes many instances of similar 
 struggles, where the love of liberty has pre- 
 vailed against power under every disadvantage, 
 and among them few more striking than that of 
 our own Revolution ; where, as strong as was 
 the parent country, and feeble as were the col- 
 onies, yet, under the impulse of liberty, and the
 
 NULLIFICA TION. 2OQ 
 
 blessing of God, they gloriously triumphed in 
 the contest. There are, indeed, many striking 
 analogies between that and the present con- 
 troversy. They both originated substantially 
 in the same cause with this difference in the 
 present case, the power of taxation is converted 
 into that of regulating industry ; in the other, 
 the power of regulating industry, by the regu- 
 lation of commerce, was attempted to be con- 
 verted into the power of taxation. Were I to 
 trace the analogy further, we should find that 
 the perversion of the taxing power, in the one 
 case, has given precisely the same control to 
 the Northern section over the industry of the 
 Southern section of the Union, which the 
 power to regulate commerce gave to Great 
 Britain over the industry of the colonies in the 
 other ; and that the very articles in which the 
 colonies were permitted to have a free trade, 
 and those in which the mother-country had a 
 monopoly, are almost identically the same as 
 those in which the Southern States are permit- 
 ted to have a free trade by the act of 1832, and 
 in which the Northern States have, by the same 
 act, secured a monopoly. The only difference 
 is in the means. In the former, the colonies 
 were permitted to have a free trade with all
 
 210 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 countries south of Cape Finisterre, a cape in 
 the northern part of Spain ; while north of that, 
 the trade of the colonies was prohibited, except 
 through the mother-country, by means of her 
 commercial regulations. If we compare the 
 products of the country north and south of 
 Cape Finisterre, we shall find them almost iden- 
 tical with the list of the protected and unpro- 
 tected articles contained in the list of last year. 
 Nor does the analogy terminate here. The 
 very arguments resorted to at the commence- 
 ment of the American Revolution, and the 
 measures adopted, and the motives assigned to 
 bring on that contest (to enforce the law), are 
 almost identically the same. 
 
 But to return from this digression to the con- 
 sideration of the bill. Whatever difference of 
 opinion may exist upon other points, there is 
 one on which I should suppose there can be 
 none ; that this bill rests upon principles which, 
 if carried out, will ride over State sovereignties, 
 and that it will be idle for any advocates here- 
 after to talk of State rights. The Senator from 
 Virginia (Mr. Rives) says that he is the advo- 
 cate of State rights ; but he must permit me to 
 tell him that, although he may differ in premises 
 from the other gentlemen with whom he acts
 
 NULLIFICA TION. 2 1 1 
 
 on this occasion, yet, in supporting this bill, he 
 obliterates every vestige of distinction between 
 him and. them, saving only that, professing the 
 principles of '98, his example will be more per- 
 nicious than that of the most open and bitter 
 opponent of the rights of the States. I will 
 also add, what I am compelled to say, that I 
 must consider him (Mr. Rives) as less consis- 
 tent than our old opponents, whose conclusions 
 were fairly drawn from their premises, while his 
 premises ought to have led him to opposite 
 conclusions. The gentleman has told us that 
 the new-fangled doctrines, as he chooses to call 
 them, have brought State rights into disrepute. 
 I must tell him, in reply, that what he calls 
 new-fangled are but the doctrines of '98 ; and 
 that it is he (Mr. Rives), and others with him, 
 who, professing these doctrines, have degraded 
 them by explaining away their meaning and 
 efficacy. He (Mr. R.) has disclaimed, in be- 
 half of Virginia, the authorship of nullification. 
 I will not dispute that point. If Virginia 
 chooses to throw away one of her brightest or- 
 naments, she must not hereafter complain that 
 it has become the property of another. But 
 while I have, as a representative of Carolina, no 
 right to complain of the disavowal of the Sena-
 
 212 JOHN C. CALHOUN. 
 
 tor from Virginia, I must believe that he (Mr. 
 R.) has done his native State great injustice by 
 declaring on this floor, that when she gravely 
 resolved, in '98, that " in cases of deliberate and 
 dangerous infractions of the Constitution, the 
 States, as parties to the compact, have the 
 right, and are in duty bound, to interpose to 
 arrest the progress of the evil, and to maintain 
 within their respective limits the authorities, 
 rights, and liberties appertaining to them," she 
 meant no more than to proclaim the right to 
 protest and to remonstrate. To suppose that, 
 in putting forth so solemn a declaration, which 
 she afterward sustained by so able and elaborate 
 an argument, she meant no more than to assert 
 what no one had ever denied, would be to sup- 
 pose that the State had been guilty of the most 
 egregious trifling that ever was exhibited on 
 so solemn an occasion.
 
 ROBERT Y. HAYNE, 
 
 OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 
 (BORN 1791, DIED 1839.) 
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION IN THE UNITED STATES 
 SENATE, JAN. 21, 1830. 
 
 MR. SPEAKER : 
 
 Mr. Hayne said, when he took occasion, two 
 days ago, to throw out some ideas with respect 
 to the policy of the government in relation to 
 the public lands, nothing certainly could have 
 been further from his thoughts than that he 
 should have been compelled again to throw him- 
 self upon the indulgence of the Senate. Little 
 did I expect, said Mr. H., to be called upon to 
 meet such an argument as was yesterday urged 
 by the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
 Webster). Sir, I question no man's opinions ; 
 I impeach no man's motives ; I charged no 
 party, or State, or section of country with hos- 
 tility to any other, but ventured, as I thought, 
 213
 
 214 ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 
 
 in a becoming spirit, to put forth my own sen- 
 timents in relation to a great nationa.1 question 
 of public policy. Such was my course. The 
 gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Benton), it is 
 true, had charged upon the Eastern States an 
 early and continued hostility toward the West, 
 and referred to a number of historical facts and 
 documents in support of that charge. Now, 
 sir, how have these different arguments been 
 met ? The honorable gentleman from Massa- 
 chusetts, after deliberating a whole night upon 
 his course, comes into this chamber to vindicate 
 New England ; and instead of making up his 
 issue with the gentleman from Missouri, on the 
 charges which he had preferred, chooses to con- 
 sider me as the author of those charges, and 
 losing sight entirely of that gentleman, selects 
 me as his adversary, and pours out all the vials 
 of his mighty wrath upon my devoted head. 
 Nor is he willing to stop there. He goes on to 
 assail the institutions and policy of the South, 
 and calls in question the principles and conduct 
 of the State which I have the honor to repre- 
 sent. When I find a gentleman of mature age 
 and experience, of acknowledged talents and 
 profound sagacity, pursuing a course like this, 
 declining the contest offered from the West,
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION. 21$ 
 
 and making war upon the unoffending South, I 
 must believe, I am bound to believe, he has 
 some object in view which he has not ventured 
 to disclose. Mr. President, why is this ? Has 
 the gentleman discovered in former controver- 
 sies with the gentleman from Missouri, that he 
 is overmatched by that senator ? And does he 
 hope for an easy victory over a more feeble ad- 
 versary? Has the gentleman's distempered 
 fancy been disturbed by gloomy forebodings of 
 " new alliances to be formed," at which he 
 hinted? Has the ghost of the murdered co- 
 alition come back, like the ghost of Banquo, to 
 " sear the eyeballs " of the gentleman, and will 
 not down at his bidding? Are dark visions of 
 broken hopes, and honors lost forever, still 
 floating before his heated imagination ? Sir, if 
 it be his object to thrust me between the gen- 
 tleman from Missouri and himself, in order to 
 rescue the East from the contest it has provoked 
 with the West, he shall not be gratified. Sir, 
 I will not be dragged into the defence of my 
 friend from Missouri. The South shall not be 
 forced into a conflict not its own. The gentle- 
 man from Missouri is able to fight his own bat- 
 tles. The gallant West needs no aid from the 
 South to repel any attack which may be made
 
 2l6 ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 
 
 upon them from any quarter. Let the gentle- 
 man from Massachusetts controvert the facts 
 and arguments of the gentleman from Missouri, 
 if he can and if he win the victory, let him 
 wear the honors ; I shall not deprive him of his 
 laurels. * * * 
 
 Sir, any one acquainted with the history of 
 parties in this country will recognize in the 
 points now in dispute between the Senator from 
 Massachusetts and myself the very grounds 
 which have, from the beginning, divided the 
 two great parties in this country, and which 
 (call these parties by what names you will, and 
 amalgamate them as you may) will divide them 
 forever. The true distinction between those 
 parties is laid down in a celebrated manifesto 
 issued by the convention of the Federalists of 
 Massachusetts, assembled in Boston, in Febru- 
 ary, 1824, on the occasion of organizing a party 
 opposition to the re-election of Governor Eustis. 
 The gentleman will recognize this as " the ca- 
 nonical book of political scripture " ; and it in- 
 structs us that, when the American colonies re- 
 deemed themselves from British bondage, and 
 became so many independent nations, they pro- 
 posed to form a NATIONAL UNION (not a 
 Federal Union, sir, but a NATIONAL UNION).
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION. 21? 
 
 Those who were in favor of a union of the 
 States in this form became known by the name 
 of Federalists ; those who wanted no union of the 
 States, or disliked the proposed form of union, 
 became known by the name of Anti-Federalists. 
 By means which need not be enumerated, the 
 Anti-Federalists became (after the expiration 
 of twelve years) our national rulers, and for a 
 period of sixteen years, until the close of Mr. 
 Madison's administration in 1817, continued to 
 exercise the exclusive direction of our public 
 affairs. Here, sir, is the true history of the 
 origin, rise, and progress of the party of Na- 
 tional Republicans, who date back to the very 
 origin of the Government, and who then, as 
 now, chose to consider the Constitution as 
 having created not a Federal, but a National, 
 Union ; who regarded " consolidation " as no 
 evil, and who doubtless consider it " a consum- 
 mation to be wished " to build up a great 
 "central government," "one and indivisible." 
 Sir, there have existed, in every age and every 
 country, two distinct orders of men the lovers 
 of freedom and the devoted advocates of power. 
 The same great leading principles, modified 
 only by the peculiarities of manners, habits, 
 and institutions, divided parties in the ancient
 
 2l8 ROBERT V. HAYNE. 
 
 republics, animated the Whigs and Tories of 
 Great Britain, distinguished in our own times 
 the Liberals and Ultras of France, and may be 
 traced even in the bloody struggles of unhappy 
 Spain. Sir, when the gallant Riego, who de- 
 voted himself and all that he possessed to the 
 liberties of his country, was dragged to the 
 scaffold, followed by the tears and lamentations 
 of every lover of freedom throughout the world, 
 he perished amid the deafening cries of " Long 
 live the absolute king ! " The people whom I 
 represent, Mr. President, are the descendants of 
 those who brought with them to this country, 
 as the most precious of their possessions, " an 
 ardent love of liberty"; and while that shall 
 be preserved, they will always be found man- 
 fully struggling against the consolidation of the 
 Government AS THE WORST OF EVILS. * * * 
 Who, then, Mr. President, are the true friends 
 of the Union ? Those who would confine the 
 Federal Government strictly within the limits 
 prescribed by the Constitution ; who would pre- 
 serve to the States and the people all powers 
 not expressly delegated ; who would make this 
 a Federal and not a National Union, and who, 
 administering the Government in a spirit of 
 equal justice, would make it a blessing, and not
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION. 219 
 
 a curse. And who are its enemies? Those 
 who are in favor of consolidation ; who are 
 constantly stealing power from the States, and 
 adding strength to the Federal Government ; 
 who, assuming an unwarrantable jurisdiction 
 over the States and the people, undertake to 
 regulate the whole industry and capital of the 
 country. But, sir, of all descriptions of men, I 
 consider those as the worst enemies of the 
 Union, who sacrifice the equal rights which 
 belong to every member of the confederacy to 
 combinations of interested majorities for per- 
 sonal or political objects. But the gentleman 
 apprehends no evil from the dependence of the 
 States on the Federal Government ; he can see 
 no danger of corruption from the influence of 
 money or patronage. Sir, I know that it is 
 supposed to be a wise saying that " patronage 
 is a source of weakness " ; and in support of 
 that maxim it has been said that " every ten 
 appointments make a hundred enemies." But 
 I am rather inclined to think, with the eloquent 
 and sagacious orater now reposing on his laurels 
 on the banks of the Roanoke, that " the power 
 of conferring favors creates a crowd of depend- 
 ents " ; he gave a forcible illustration of the 
 truth of the remark, when he told us of the
 
 220 ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 
 
 effect of holding up the savory morsel to the 
 eager eyes of the hungry hounds gathered 
 around his door. It mattered not whether the 
 gift was bestowed on " Towzer " or " Sweetlips," 
 " Tray," " Blanche," or " Sweetheart " ; while 
 held in suspense, they were all governed by a 
 nod, and when the morsel was bestowed, the 
 expectation of the favors of to-morrow kept up 
 the subjection of to-day. 
 
 The Senator from Massachusetts, in denounc- 
 ing what he is pleased to call the Carolina doc- 
 trine, has attempted to throw ridicule upon the 
 idea that a State has any constitutional remedy 
 by the exercise of its sovereign authority, against 
 " a gross, palpable, and deliberate violation of 
 the Constitution." He calls it " an idle " or " a 
 ridiculous notion," or something to that effect, 
 and added, that it would make the Union a 
 " mere rope of sand." Now, sir, as the gentle- 
 man has not condescended to enter into any ex- 
 amination of the question, and has been satis- 
 fied with throwing the weight of his authority 
 into the scale, I do not deem it necessary to do 
 more than to throw into the opposite scale the 
 authority on which South Carolina relies; and 
 there, for the present, I am perfectly willing to 
 leave the controversy. The South Carolina
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION. 221 
 
 doctrine, that is to say, the doctrine contained 
 in an exposition reported by a committee of the 
 Legislature in December, 1828, and published 
 by their authority, is the good old Republican 
 doctrine of '98 the doctrine of the celebrated 
 " Virginia Resolutions " of that year, and of 
 " Madison's Report " of '99. It will be recol- 
 lected that the Legislature of Virginia, in 
 December, '98, took into consideration the alien 
 and sedition laws, then considered by all Re- 
 publicans as a gross violation of the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States, and on that day 
 passed, among others, the following resolu- 
 tion : 
 
 " The General Assembly doth explicitly and 
 peremptorily declare, that it views the powers 
 of the Federal Government, as resulting from 
 the compact to which the States are parties, as 
 limited by the plain sense and intention of the 
 instrument constituting that compact, as no 
 further valid than they are authorized by the 
 grants enumerated in that compact ; and that 
 in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous 
 exercise of other powers not granted by the said 
 compact, the States who are the parties there- 
 to have the right, and are in duty bound, to in- 
 terpose for arresting the progress of the evil,
 
 222 ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 
 
 and for maintaining within their respective 
 limits the authorities, rights, and liberties apper- 
 taining to them." 
 
 In addition to the above resolution, the 
 General Assembly of Virginia " appealed to the 
 other States, in the confidence that they would 
 concur with that commonwealth, that the acts 
 aforesaid (the alien and sedition laws) are un- 
 constitutional, and that the necessary and proper 
 measures would be taken by each for cooperating 
 with Virginia in maintaining unimpaired the 
 authorities, rights, and liberties reserved to the 
 States respectively, or to the people." * * * 
 
 But, sir, our authorities do not stop here. 
 The State of Kentucky responded to Virginia, 
 and on the loth of November, 1798, adopted 
 those celebrated resolutions, well known to 
 have been penned by the author of the Decla- 
 ration of American Independence. In those 
 resolutions, the Legislature of Kentucky declare, 
 " that the government created by this compact 
 was not made the exclusive or final judge of the 
 extent of the power delegated to itself, since 
 that would have made its discretion, and not 
 the Constitution, the measure of its powers ; 
 but that, as in all other cases of compact among 
 parties having no common judge, each party has
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION. 22$ 
 
 an equal right to judge for itself as well of in- 
 fractions as of the mode and measure of re- 
 dress." * * * 
 
 Sir, at that day the whole country was divid- 
 ed on this very question. . It formed the line 
 of demarcation between the federal and re- 
 publican parties ; and the great political revo- 
 lution which then took place turned upon'the 
 very questions involved in these resolutions. 
 That question was decided by the people, and 
 by that decision the Constitution was, in the 
 emphatic language of Mr. Jefferson, " saved at 
 its last gasp." I should suppose, sir, it would 
 require more self-respect than any gentleman 
 here would be willing to assume, to treat lightly 
 doctrines derived from such high sources. 
 Resting on authority like this, I will ask, gentle- 
 men, whether South Carolina has not manifested 
 a high regard for the Union, when, under a 
 tyranny ten times more grievous than the alien 
 and sedition laws, she has hitherto gone no 
 further than to petition, remonstrate, and to 
 solemnly protest against a series of measures 
 which she believes to be wholly unconstitu- 
 tional and utterly destructive of her interests. 
 Sir, South Carolina has not gone one step fur- 
 ther than Mr. Jefferson himself was disposed to
 
 224 ROBERT F. HAYNE. 
 
 go, in relation to the present subject of our 
 present complaints not a step further than the 
 statesmen from New England were disposed to 
 go under similar circumstances ; no further 
 than the Senator from Massachusetts himself 
 once considered as within " the limits of a con- 
 stitutional opposition." The doctrine that it is 
 the right of a State to judge of the violations 
 of the Constitution on the part of the Federal 
 Government, and to protect her citizens from 
 the operations of unconstitional laws, was held 
 by the enlightened citizens of Boston, who as- 
 sembled in Faneuil Hall, on the 25th of January, 
 1809. They state, in that celebrated memorial, 
 that " they looked only to the State Legisla- 
 ture, which was competent to devise relief 
 against the unconstitutional acts of the Gene- 
 ral Government. That your power (say they) 
 is adequate to that object, is evident from the 
 organization of the confederacy." * * * 
 
 Thus it will be seen, Mr. President, that the 
 South Carolina doctrine is the Republican 
 doctrine of '98, that it was promulgated by 
 the fathers of the faith, that it was main- 
 tained by Virginia and Kentucky in the worst 
 of times, that it constituted the very pivot 
 on which the political revolution of that day
 
 ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION. 22$ 
 
 turned, that it embraces the very principles, 
 the triumph of which, at that time, saved the 
 Constitution at its last gasp, and which New 
 England statesmen were not unwilling to adopt 
 when they believed themselves to be the vic- 
 tims of unconstitutional legislation. Sir, as to 
 the doctrine that the Federal Government is the 
 exclusive judge of the extent as well as the 
 limitations of its power, it seems to me to be 
 utterly subversive of the sovereignty and in- 
 dependence of the States. It makes but little 
 difference, in my estimation, whether Congress 
 or the Supreme Court are invested with this 
 power. If the Federal Government, in all, or 
 any, of its departments, is to prescribe the 
 limits of its own authority, and the States are 
 bound to submit to the decision, and are not to 
 be allowed to examine and decide for them- 
 selves when the barriers of the Constitution 
 shall be overleaped, this is practically " a 
 government without limitation of powers." 
 The States are at once reduced to mere petty 
 corporations, and the people are entirely at 
 your mercy. I have but one word more to 
 add. In all the efforts that have been made by 
 South Carolina to resist the unconstitutional 
 laws which Congress has extended over them,
 
 226 ROBERT Y. HAYNE. 
 
 she has kept steadily in view the preservation 
 of the Union, by the only means by which she 
 believes it can be long preserved a firm, 
 manly, and steady resistance against usurpation. 
 The measures of the Federal Government have, 
 it is true, prostrated her interests, and will soon 
 involve the whole South in irretrievable ruin. 
 But even this evil, great as it is, is not the 
 chief ground of our complaints. It is the prin- 
 ciple involved in the contest a principle which, 
 substituting the discretion of Congress for the 
 limitations of the Constitution, brings the States 
 and the people to the feet of the Federal 
 Government, and leaves them nothing they can 
 call their own. Sir, if the measures of the 
 Federal Government were less oppressive, we 
 should still strive against this usurpation. The 
 South is acting on a principle she has always 
 held sacred resistance to unauthorized taxa- 
 tion. These, sir, are the principles which in- 
 duced the immortal Hampden to resist the 
 payment of a tax of twenty shillings. Would 
 twenty shillings have ruined his fortune ? No ! 
 but the payment of half of twenty shillings, on 
 the principle on which it was demanded, would 
 have made him a slave. Sir, if acting on these 
 high motives if animated by that ardent love
 
 ON MR. FOOTS RESOLUTION. 22? 
 
 of liberty which has always been the most 
 prominent trait in the Southern character, we 
 would be hurried beyond the bounds of a cold 
 and calculating prudence ; who is there, with one 
 noble and generous sentiment in his bosom, 
 who would not be disposed, in the language of 
 Burke, to exclaim, " You must pardon some- 
 thing to the spirit of liberty ? "
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER, 
 
 OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
 (BORN 1782, DIED 1852.) 
 
 IN REPLY TO HAYNE, IN THE UNITED STATES 
 SENATE, JANUARY 26, 1830. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT : 
 
 When the mariner has been tossed for many 
 days in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, 
 he naturally avails himself of the first pause in 
 the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take 
 his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements 
 have driven him from his true course. Let 
 us imitate this prudence, and before we float 
 further on the waves of this debate, refer to the 
 point from which we departed, that we may at 
 least be able to conjecture where we now are. 
 I ask for the reading of the resolution before 
 the Senate. 
 
 The Secretary read the resolution, as follows : 
 
 Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands 
 228
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 22Q 
 
 be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of 
 public land remaining unsold within each State and 
 Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for 
 a certain period the sales of the public lands to 
 such lands only as have heretofore been offered for 
 sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum 
 price. And, also, whether the office of Surveyor- 
 General, and some of the land offices, may not be 
 abolished without detriment to the public interest ; 
 or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to 
 hasten the sales and extend more rapidly the sur- 
 veys of the public lands. 
 
 We have thus heard, sir, what the resolu- 
 tion is which is actually before us for consid- 
 eration ; and it will readily occur to everyone, 
 that it is almost the only subject about which 
 something has not been said in the speech, 
 running through two days, by which the Senate 
 has been entertained by the gentleman from 
 South Carolina. Every topic in the wide range 
 of our public affairs, whether past or present 
 every thing, general or local, whether belonging 
 to national politics or party politics seems to 
 have attracted more or less of the honorable 
 member's attention, save only the resolution 
 before the Senate. He has spoken of every 
 thing but the public lands ; they have escaped
 
 230 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 his notice. To that subject, in all his excur- 
 sions, he has not paid even the cold respect of 
 a passing glance. 
 
 When this debate, sir, was to be resumed, on 
 Thursday morning, it so happened that it 
 would have been convenient for me to be else- 
 where. The honorable member, however, did 
 not incline to put off the discussion to another 
 day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and 
 he wished to discharge it. That shot, sir, which 
 he thus kindly informed us was coming, that 
 we might stand out of the way, or prepare our- 
 selves to fall by it and die with decency, has 
 now been received. Under all advantages, and 
 with expectation awakened by the tone which 
 preceded it, it has been discharged, and has 
 spent its force. It may become me to say no 
 more of its effect, than that, if nobody is found, 
 after all, either killed or wounded, it is not the 
 first time in the history of human affairs, that 
 the vigor and success of the war have not quite 
 come up to the lofty and sounding phrase of 
 the manifesto. 
 
 The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone 
 the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis 
 of his hand upon his heart, that there was 
 something rankling here, which he wished to
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 2$i 
 
 relieve. (Mr. Hayne rose, and disclaimed 
 having used the word rankling.} It would not, 
 Mr. President, be safe for the honorable mem- 
 ber to appeal to those around him, upon the 
 question whether he did in fact make use of 
 that word. But he may have been unconscious 
 of it. At any rate, it is enough that he dis- 
 claims it. But still, with or without the use of 
 that particular word, he had yet something 
 here, he said, of which he wished to rid himself 
 by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I 
 have a great advantage over the honorable 
 gentleman. There is nothing here, sir, which 
 gives me the slightest uneasiness ; neither fear, 
 nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more 
 troublesome than either, the consciousness of 
 having been in the wrong. There is nothing, 
 either originating here, or now received here by 
 the gentleman's shot. Nothing originating 
 here, for I had not the slightest feeling of un- 
 kindness toward the honorable member. Some 
 passages, it is true, had occurred since our 
 acquaintance in this body, which I could have 
 wished might have been otherwise ; but I had 
 used philosophy and forgotten them. I paid 
 the honorable member the attention of listen- 
 ing with respect to his first speech ; and when
 
 232 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 he sat down, though surprised, and I must even 
 say astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing 
 was farther from my intention than to com- 
 mence any personal warfare. Through the 
 whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I 
 avoided, studiously and carefully, every thing 
 which I thought possible to be construed into 
 disrespect. And, Sir, while there is thus noth- 
 ing originating here which I have wished at 
 any time, or now wish, to discharge, I must 
 repeat, also, that nothing has been received 
 here which rankles, or in any way gives me 
 annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable 
 member of violating the rules of civilized war; 
 I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. 
 But whether his shafts were, or were not, 
 dipped in that which would have caused rank- 
 ling if they had reached their destination, there 
 was not, as it happened, quite strength enough 
 in the bow to bring them to their mafk. If he 
 wishes now to gather up those shafts, he must 
 look for them elsewhere ; they will not be 
 found fixed and quivering in the object at 
 which they were aimed. 
 
 The honorable member complained that I 
 slept on his speech. I must have slept on it, 
 or not slept at all. The moment the honora-
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 233 
 
 ble member sat down, his friend from Missouri 
 rose, and, with much honeyed commendation 
 of the speech, suggested that the impressions 
 which it had produced were too charming and 
 delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments 
 or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate 
 should adjourn. Would it have been quite 
 amiable in me, Sir, to interrupt this excellent 
 good feeling? Must I not have been absolutely 
 malicious, if I could have thrust myself for- 
 ward, to destroy sensations thus pleasing? 
 Was it not much better and kinder, both to 
 sleep upon them myself, and to allow others 
 also the pleasure of sleeping upon them ? But 
 if it be meant, by sleeping upon his speech, that 
 I took time to prepare a reply to it, it is quite 
 a mistake. Owing to other engagements, I 
 could not employ even the interval between the 
 adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the 
 next morning, in attention to the subject of 
 this debate. Nevertheless, Sir, the mere mat- 
 ter of fact is undoubtedly true. I did sleep on 
 the gentleman's speech, and slept soundly. 
 And I slept equally well on his speech of yes- 
 terday, to which I am now replying. It is 
 quite possible that in this respect, also, I 
 possess some advantage over the honorable
 
 234 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler 
 temperament on my part ; for, in truth, I slept 
 upon his speeches remarkably well. 
 
 But the gentleman inquires why HE was made 
 the object of such a reply. Why was he singled 
 out? If an attack has been made on the East, 
 he, he assures us, did not begin it ; it was made 
 by the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I an- 
 swered the gentleman's speech because I hap- 
 pened to hear it ; and because, also, I choose to 
 give an answer to that speech, which, if un- 
 answered, I thought most likely to produce in- 
 jurious impressions. I did not stop to inquire 
 who was the original drawer of the bill. I found 
 a responsible indorser before me, and it was my 
 purpose to hold him liable, and to bring him to 
 his just responsibility without delay. But, sir, 
 this interrogatory of the honorable member was 
 only introductory to another. He proceeded 
 to ask me whether I had turned upon him in 
 this debate, from the consciousness that I 
 should find an overmatch, if I ventured on a 
 contest with his friend from Missouri. If, sir, 
 the honorable member, modesti<z gratia, had 
 chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay 
 him compliments, without intentional disparage- 
 ment to others, it would have been quite ac-
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE, 235 
 
 cording to the friendly courtesies of debate, 
 and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. 
 I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any 
 tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, 
 or more serious and deliberate, which may be 
 bestowed on others, as so much unjustly with- 
 holden from themselves. But the tone and the 
 manner of the gentleman's question forbid me 
 thus to interpret it. I am not at liberty to con- 
 sider it as. nothing more than a civility to his 
 friend. It had an air of taunt and disparage- 
 ment, something of the loftiness of asserted 
 superiority, which does not allow me to pass it 
 over without notice. It was put as a question 
 for me to answer, and so put as if it were diffi- 
 cult for me to answer whether I deemed the 
 member from Missouri an overmatch for my- 
 self in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that 
 this is extraordinary language, and an extraor- 
 dinary tone, for the discussions of this body. 
 
 Matches and overmatches ! Those terms are 
 more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter 
 for other assemblies than this. Sir, the gentle- 
 man seems to forget where and what we are. 
 This is a Senate, a Senate of equals, of men of 
 individual honor and personal character, and of 
 absolute independence. We know no masters,
 
 236 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for 
 mutual consultation and discussion ; not an 
 arena for the exhibition of champions. I offer 
 myself, sir, as a match for no man ; I throw the 
 challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, 
 sir, since the honorable member has put the 
 question in a manner that calls for an answer, 
 I will give him an answer ; and I tell him, that, 
 holding myself to be the humblest of the mem- 
 bers here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his 
 friend from Missouri, either alone or when 
 aided by the arm of his friend from South 
 Carolina, that need deter even me from es- 
 pousing whatever opinions I may choose to 
 espouse, from debating whenever I may 
 choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I 
 may see fit to say, on the floor of the Senate. 
 Sir, when uttered as matter of commendation 
 or compliment, I should dissent from nothing 
 which the honorable member might say of his 
 friend. Still less do I put forth any pretensions 
 of my own. But when put to me as a matter 
 of taunt, I throw it back, and say to the gentle- 
 man, that he could possibly say nothing less 
 likely than such a comparison to wound my 
 pride of personal character. The anger of its 
 tone rescued the remark from intentional irony,
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 237 
 
 which otherwise, probably, would have been its 
 general acceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined 
 by this mutual quotation and commendation ; 
 if it be supposed that, by casting the characters 
 of the drama, assigning to each his part, to one 
 the attack, to another the cry of onset ; or if it 
 be thought that, by a loud and empty vaunt of 
 anticipated victory, any laurels are to be won 
 here ; if it be imagined, especially, that any, or 
 all of these things will shake any purpose of 
 mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for 
 all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is 
 dealing with one of whose temper and character 
 he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow 
 myself, on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, 
 to be betrayed into any loss of temper ; but if 
 provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crim- 
 ination and recrimination, the honorable member 
 may, perhaps, find that in that contest, there 
 will be blows to take as well as blows to give ; 
 that others can state comparisons as significant, 
 at least, as his own, and that his impunity may 
 possibly demand of him whatever powers of 
 taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I com- 
 mend him to a prudent husbandry of his 
 resources. * * * 
 
 On yet another point, I was still more unac-
 
 238 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 countably misunderstood. The gentlemen had 
 harangued against " consolidation." I told him, 
 in reply, that there was one kind of consolidation 
 to which I was attached, and that was the consoli- 
 dation of our Union ; that this was precisely 
 that consolidation to which I feared others were 
 not attached, and that such consolidation was 
 the very end of the Constitution, the leading 
 object, as they had informed us themselves, 
 which its framers had kept in view. I turned 
 to their communication, and read their very 
 words, " the consolidation of the Union," and 
 expressed my devotion to this sort of consolida- 
 tion. I said, in terms, that I wished not in the 
 slightest degree to augment the powers of this 
 government ; that my object was to preserve, 
 not to enlarge ; and that by consolidating the 
 Union I understood no more than the strength- 
 ening of the Union, and perpetuating it. Hav- 
 ing been thus explicit, having thus read from 
 the printed book the precise words which I 
 adopted, as expressing my own sentiments, it 
 passes comprehension how any man could un- 
 derstand me as contending for an extension of 
 the powers of the government, or for consolida- 
 tion in that odious sense in which it means an 
 accumulation, in the Federal Government, of the 
 powers properly belonging to the States.
 
 REPL Y TO HA YNE. 239 
 
 I repeat, sir, that, in adopting the sentiments 
 of the framers of the Constitution, I read their 
 language audibly, and word for word ; and I 
 pointed out the distinction, just as fully as I 
 have now done, between the consolidation of 
 the Union and that other obnoxious consolida- 
 tion which I disclaim. And yet the honorable 
 member misunderstood me. The gentleman 
 had said that he wished for no fixed revenue, 
 not a shilling. If by a word he could convert 
 the Capitol into gold, he would not do it. Why 
 all this fear of revenue ? Why, sir, because, as 
 the gentleman told us, it tends to consolidation. 
 Now this can mean neither more nor less than 
 that a common revenue is a common interest, 
 and that all common interests tend to preserve 
 the union of the States. I confess I like that 
 tendency; if the gentleman dislikes it, he is 
 right in deprecating a shilling of fixed revenue. 
 So much, sir, for consolidation. * * * 
 
 Professing to be provoked by what he chose 
 to consider a charge made by me against South 
 Carolina, the honorable member, Mr. President, 
 has taken up a crusade against New England. 
 Leaving altogether the subject of the public 
 lands, in which his success, perhaps, had been 
 neither distinguished nor satisfactory, and let-
 
 240 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ting go, also, of the topic of the tariff, he 
 sallied forth in a general assault on the opin- 
 ions, politics, and parties of New England, as 
 they have been exibited in the last thirty 
 years. * * * 
 
 New England has, at times, so argues the 
 gentleman, held opinions as dangerous as those 
 which he now holds. Suppose this were so ; 
 how should he therefore abuse New England ? 
 If he find himself countenanced by acts of hers, 
 how is it that, while he relies on these acts, he 
 covers, or seeks to cover, their authors with re- 
 proach? But, sir, if in the course of forty 
 years, there have been undue effervescences of 
 party in New England, has the same thing hap- 
 pened nowhere else ? Party animosity and par- 
 ty outrage, not in New England, but elsewhere, 
 denounced President Washington, not only as a 
 Federalist, but as a Tory, a British agent, a man 
 who in his high office sanctioned corruption. 
 But does the honorable member suppose, if I 
 had a tender here who should put such an 
 effusion of wickedness and folly into my hand, 
 that I would stand up and read it against the 
 South ? Parties ran into great heats again in 
 1799 and 1800. What was said, sir, or rather 
 what was not said, in those years, against John
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 24! 
 
 Adams, one of the committee that drafted the 
 Declaration of Independence, and its admitted 
 ablest defender on the floor of Congress? If 
 the gentleman wishes to increase his stores of 
 party abuse and frothy violence, if he has a de- 
 termined proclivity to such pursuits, there are 
 treasures of that sort south of the Potomac, 
 much to his taste, yet untouched. I shall not 
 touch them. * * * The gentleman's per- 
 veyors have only catered for him among the 
 productions of one side. I certainly shall not 
 supply the deficiency by furnishing him samples 
 of the other. I leave to him, and to them, the 
 whole concern. It is enough for me to say, 
 that if, in any part of their grateful occupation, 
 if, in all their researches, they find any thing in 
 the history of Massachusetts, or of New Eng- 
 land, or in the proceedings of any legislative or 
 other public body, disloyal to the Union, speak- 
 ing slightingly of its value, proposing to break it 
 up, or recommending non-intercourse with neigh- 
 boring States, on account of difference in politi- 
 cal opinion, then, sir, I give them all up to the 
 honorable gentleman's unrestrained rebuke ; ex- 
 pecting, however, that he will extend his buffet- 
 ings in like manner, to all similar proceedings, 
 wherever else found. * * *
 
 242 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Mr. President, in carrying his warfare, such 
 as it is, into New England, the honorable gen- 
 tleman all along professes to be acting on the 
 defensive. He chooses to consider me as hav- 
 ing assailed South Carolina, and insists that he 
 comes forth only as her champion, and in her 
 defence. Sir, I do not admit that I made any 
 attack whatever on South Carolina. Nothing 
 like it. The honorable member, in his first 
 speech, expressed opinions, in regard to revenue 
 and some other topics, which I heard with both 
 pain and surprise. I told the gentleman I 
 was aware that such sentiments were enter- 
 tained out of the Government, but had not ex- 
 pected to find them advanced in it ; that I 
 knew there were persons in the South who 
 speak of our Union with indifference or doubt, 
 taking pains to magnify its evils, and to say 
 nothing of its benefits ; that the honorable 
 member himself, I was sure, could never be 
 one of these ; and I regretted the expression of 
 such opinions as he had avowed, because I 
 thought their obvious tendency was to encour- 
 age feelings of disrespect to the Union, and 
 to impair its strength. This, sir, is the sum 
 and substance of all I said on the subject. 
 And this constitutes the attack which called on
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 243 
 
 the chivalry of the gentleman, in his own opin- 
 ion, to harry us with such a foray among the 
 party pamphlets and party proceedings in Mass- 
 achusetts ! If he means that I spoke with dis- 
 satisfaction or disrespect of the ebullitions of 
 individuals in South Carolina, it is true. But 
 if he means that I assailed the character of the 
 State, her honor, or patriotism, that I reflected 
 on her history or her conduct, he has not 
 the slightest grounds for any such assumption. 
 * * * I shall not acknowledge that the honor- 
 able member goes before me in regard for what- 
 ever of distinguished talent or distinguished 
 character South Carolina has produced. I claim 
 part of the honor, I partake in the pride of her 
 great names. I claim them for my country- 
 men, one and all, the Laurenses, the Rutledges, 
 the Pinckneys, the Sumpters, the Marions, 
 Americans all, whose fame is no more to be 
 hemmed in by State lines than their talents 
 and patriotism were capable of being circum- 
 scribed within the same narrow limits. In their 
 day and generation they served and honored 
 the country, and the whole country ; and their 
 renown is of the treasures of the whole country. 
 Him whose honored name the gentleman him- 
 self bears does he esteem me less capable of
 
 244 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for 
 his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened 
 upon the light of Massachusetts, instead of 
 South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in 
 his power to exhibit a Carolina name so 
 bright as to produce envy in my bosom ? 
 No, sir ; increased gratification and delight, 
 rather. I thank God that, if I am gifted 
 with little of the spirit which is able to raise 
 mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I 
 trust, of that other spirit which would drag 
 angels down. When I shall be found, sir, in 
 my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to 
 sneer at public merit, because it happens to 
 spring up beyond the little limits of my own 
 State or neighborhood ; when I refuse, for any 
 such cause, or for any cause, the homage due 
 to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to 
 sincere devotion to liberty and the country ; or, 
 if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven, 
 if I see extraordinary capacity and virtue, in 
 any son of the South ; and if, moved by local 
 prejudices or gangrened by State jealousy, I 
 get up here to abate the tithe of a hair from his 
 just character and just fame, may my tongue 
 cleave to the roof of my mouth ! 
 
 Sir, let me recur to pleasing recollections;
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 245 
 
 let me indulge in refreshing remembrances of 
 the past ; let me remind you that, in early times, 
 no States cherished greater harmony, both of 
 principle and feeling, than Massachusetts and 
 South Carolina. Would to God that harmony 
 might again return ! Shoulder to shoulder they 
 went through the Revolution, hand in hand 
 they stood round the administration of Wash- 
 ington, and felt his own great arm lean on them 
 for support. Unkind feeling, if it exist, aliena- 
 tion, and distrust, are the growth, unnatural to 
 such soils, of false principles since sown. They 
 are weeds, the seeds of which that same great 
 arm never scattered. 
 
 Mr. President, I shall enter upon no enco- 
 mium of Massachusetts ; she needs none. There 
 she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. 
 There is her history; the world knows it by 
 heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is 
 Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and 
 Bunker Hill; and there they will remain for 
 ever. The bones of her sons, falling in the 
 great struggle for Independence, now lie mingled 
 with the soil of every State from New England 
 to Georgia, and there they will lie forever. And, 
 sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, 
 and where its youth was nurtured and sustained,
 
 246 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 there It still lives, in the strength of its man- 
 hood, and full of its original spirit. If discord 
 and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and 
 blind ambition shall hawk and tear it, if folly 
 and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and 
 necessary restraint shall succeed in separating 
 it from that Union, by which alone its existence 
 is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the 
 side of that cradle in which its infancy was 
 rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with what- 
 ever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends 
 who gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if 
 fall it must, amidst the profoundest monuments 
 of its own glory, and on the very spot of its 
 origin. 
 
 There yet remains to be performed, Mr. 
 President, by far the most grave and important 
 duty which I feel to be devolved upon me by 
 this occasion. It is to state, and to defend, 
 what I conceive to be the true principles of the 
 Constitution under which we are here assembled. 
 I might well have desired that so weighty a task 
 should have fallen into other and abler hands. 
 I could have wished that it should have been 
 executed by those whose character and experi- 
 ence give weight and influence to their opinions, 
 such as cannot possibly belong to mine. But,
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 247 
 
 sir, I have met the occasion, not sought it ; and 
 I shall proceed to state my own sentiments, 
 without challenging for them any particular re- 
 gard, with studied plainness, and as much pre- 
 cision as possible. 
 
 I understand the honorable gentleman from 
 South Carolina to maintain that it is a right of 
 the State Legislatures to interfere whenever, in 
 their judgment, this government transcends its 
 constitutional limits, and to arrest the opera- 
 tion of its laws. 
 
 I understand him to maintain this right, as a 
 right existing under the Constitution, not as a 
 right to overthrow it on the ground of extreme 
 necessity, such as would justify violent revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 I understand him to maintain an authority on 
 the part of the States, thus to interfere, for the 
 purpose of correcting the exercise of power by 
 the General Government, of checking it and of 
 compelling it to conform to their opinion of the 
 extent of its powers. 
 
 I understand him to maintain, that the ulti- 
 mate power of judging of the constitutional 
 extent of its own authority is not lodged ex- 
 clusively in the General Government, or any 
 branch of it ; but that, on the contrary, the
 
 248 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 States may lawfully decide for themselves, and 
 each State for itself, whether, in a given case, 
 the act of the General Government transcends 
 its power. 
 
 I understand him to insist, that, if the exigen- 
 cies of the case, in the opinion of any State 
 government, require it, such State government 
 may, by its own sovereign authority, annul an 
 act of the General Government which it deems 
 plainly and palpably unconstitutional. 
 
 This is the sum of what I understand from him 
 to be the South Carolina doctrine, and the doc- 
 trine which he maintains. I propose to consider 
 it, and compare it with the Constitution. Allow 
 me to say, as a preliminary remark, that I call this 
 the South Carolina doctrine only because the 
 gentleman himself has so denominated it. I 
 do not feel at liberty to say that South Caro- 
 lina, as a State, has ever advanced these senti- 
 ments. I hope she has not, and never may. 
 That a great majority of her people are opposed 
 to the tariff laws, is doubtless true. That a 
 majority, somewhat less than that just men- 
 tioned, conscientiously believe these laws un- 
 constitutional, may probably also be true. But 
 that any majority holds to the right of direct 
 State interference at State discretion, the right
 
 REPL Y TO HA YNE. 249 
 
 of nullifying acts of Congress by acts of State 
 legislation, is more than I know, and what I 
 shall be slow to believe. 
 
 That there are individuals besides the honor- 
 able gentleman who do maintain these opin- 
 ions, is quite certain. I recollect the recent 
 expression of a sentiment, which circumstances 
 attending its utterance and publication justify 
 us in supposing was not unpremeditated. " The 
 sovereignty of the State, never to be con- 
 trolled, construed, or decided on, but by her 
 own feelings of honorable justice." 
 
 [Mr. HAYNE here rose and said, that, for the 
 purpose of being clearly understood, he would 
 state that his proposition was in the words of 
 the Virginia resolution as follows : 
 
 " That this assembly doth explicitly and per- 
 emptorily declare, that it views the powers of 
 the Federal Government, as resulting from the 
 compact to which the States are parties, as 
 limited by the plain sense and intention of the 
 instrument constituting that compact, as no 
 farther valid than they are authorized by the 
 grants enumerated in that compact ; and that, 
 in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous 
 exercise of other powers not granted by the said 
 compact, the States that are parties thereto
 
 250 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 have the right, and are in duty bound to inter- 
 pose for arresting the progress of the evil, and 
 for maintaining within their respective limits 
 the authorities, rights, and liberties appertain- 
 ing to them. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER resumed :] 
 
 I am quite aware, Mr. President, of the 
 existence of the resolution which the gentleman 
 read, and has now repeated, and that he relies 
 on it as his authority. I know the source, too, 
 from which it is understood to have proceeded. 
 I need not say that I have much respect 
 for the constitutional opinions of Mr. Madison ; 
 they would weigh greatly with me always. 
 But before the authority of his opinion be 
 vouched for the gentleman's proposition, it will 
 be proper to consider what is the fair inter- 
 pretation of that resolution, to which Mr. Madi- 
 son is understood to have given his sanction. 
 As the gentleman construes it, it is an au- 
 thority for him. Possibly, he may not have 
 adopted the right construction. That resolu- 
 tion declares, that, in the case of the dangerous 
 exercise of powers not granted by the General 
 Government, the States may interpose to arrest 
 the progress of the evil. But how interpose, 
 and what does this declaration purport ? Does
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 2$ I 
 
 it mean no more than that there may be 
 extreme cases, in which the people, in any 
 mode of assembling, may resist usurpation, 
 and relieve themselves from a tyrannical gov- 
 ernment ? No one will deny this. Such re- 
 sistance is not only acknowledged to be just 
 in America, but in England also. Blackstone 
 admits as much, in the theory, and practice, 
 too, of the English Constitution. We, sir, 
 who oppose the Carolina doctrine, do not deny 
 that the people may, if they choose, throw off 
 any government when it becomes oppressive 
 and intolerable, and erect a better in its stead. 
 We all know that civil institutions are estab- 
 lished for the public benefit, and that when 
 they cease to answer the ends of their existence 
 they may be changed. But I do not under- 
 stand the doctrine now contended for to be 
 that, which, for the sake of distinction, we 
 may call the right of revolution. I understand 
 the gentleman to maintain, that, without 
 revolution, without civil commotion, without 
 rebellion, a remedy for supposed abuse and 
 transgression of the powers of the General 
 Government lies in a direct appeal to the inter- 
 ference of the State governments. 
 
 [Mr. HAYNE here arose and said : He did
 
 252 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 not contend for the mere right of revolution, 
 but for the right of constitutional resistance. 
 What he maintained was, that in a case of 
 plain, palpable violation of the Constitution 
 by the General Government, a State may inter- 
 pose ; and that this interposition is consti- 
 tutional. 
 
 Mr. WEBSTER resumed :] 
 
 So, sir, I understood the gentleman, and am 
 happy to find that I did not misunderstand 
 him. What he contends for is, that it is con- 
 stitutional to interrupt the administration of 
 the Constitution itself, in the hands of those 
 who are chosen and sworn to administer it, 
 by the direct interference, in form of law, 
 of the States, in virtue of their sovereign 
 capacity. The inherent right in the people to 
 reform their government I do not deny ; and 
 they have another right, and that is, to resist 
 unconstitutional laws, without overturning the 
 government. It is no doctrine of mine that 
 unconstitutional laws bind the people. The 
 great question is, Whose prerogative is it 
 to decide on the constitutionality or unconsti- 
 tutionally of the laws? On that, the main 
 debate hinges. The proposition, that, in case 
 of a supposed violation of the Constitution by
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 253 
 
 Congress, the States have a constitutional right 
 to interfere and annul the law of Congress is 
 the proposition of the gentleman. I do not 
 admit it. If the gentleman had intended no 
 more than to assert the right of revolution 
 for justifiable cause, he would have said only 
 what all agree to. But I cannot conceive that 
 there can be a middle course, between submis- 
 sion to the laws, when regularly pronounced 
 constitutional, on the one hand, and open 
 resistance, which is revolution or rebellion, 
 on the other. I say, the right of a State to 
 annul a law of Congress cannot be maintained, 
 but on the ground of the inalienable right of 
 man to resist oppression ; that is to say, upon 
 the ground of revolution. I admit that there 
 is an ultimate violent remedy, above the Consti- 
 tution and in defiance of the Constitution, 
 which may be resorted to when a revolution is 
 to be justified. But I do not admit, that, un- 
 der the Constitution and in conformity with it, 
 there is any mode in which a State govern- 
 ment, as a member of the Union, can interfere 
 and stop the progress of the General Govern- 
 ment, by force of her own laws, under any 
 circumstances whatever. 
 
 This leads us to inquire into, the origin of
 
 254 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 this government and the source of its power. 
 Whose agent is it ? Is it the creature of the 
 State Legislatures, or the creature of the people ? 
 If the Government of the United States be the 
 agent of the State governments, then they may 
 control it, provided they can agree in the man- 
 ner of controlling it ; if it be the agent of the 
 people, then the people alone can control it, 
 restrain it, modify, or reform it. It is observ- 
 able enough, that the docrine for which the 
 honorable gentleman contends leads him to the 
 necessity of maintaining, not only that this Gen- 
 eral Government is the creature of the States, 
 but that it is the creature of each of the States, 
 severally, so that each may assert the power 
 for itself of determining whether it acts within 
 the limits of its authority. It is the servant of 
 four-and-twenty masters, of different wills and 
 different purposes, and yet bound to obey all. 
 This absurdity (for it seems no less) arises from 
 a misconception as to the origin of this govern- 
 ment and its true character. It is, sir, the 
 people's Constitution, the people's government, 
 made for the people, made by the people, and 
 answerable to the people. The people of the 
 United States have declared that this Constitu- 
 tion shall be supreme law. We must either ad-
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 2$$ 
 
 mit the proposition, or deny their authority. 
 The States are, unquestionably, sovereign, so 
 far as their sovereignty is not affected by this 
 supreme law. But the State Legislatures, as 
 political bodies, however sovereign, are yet not 
 sovereign over the people. So far as the people 
 have given power to the General Government, 
 so far the grant is unquestionably good, and 
 the Government holds of the people, and not of 
 the State governments. We are all agents of 
 the same supreme power, the people. The 
 General Government and the State governments 
 derive their authority from the same source. 
 Neither can, in relation to the other, be called 
 primary, though one is definite and restricted, 
 and the other general and residuary. The Na- 
 tional Government possesses those powers 
 which it can be shown the people have con- 
 ferred on it, and no more. All the rest belongs 
 to the State governments, or to the people 
 themselves. So far as the people have re- 
 strained State sovereignty by the expression of 
 their will, in the Constitution of the United 
 States, so far, it must be admitted, State sov- 
 ereignty is effectually controlled. I do not 
 contend that it is, or ought to be, controlled 
 farther. The sentiment to which I have re-
 
 256 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ferred propounds that State sovereignty is only 
 to be controlled by its own " feeling of justice" 
 that is to say, it is not to be controlled at all, 
 for one who is to follow his own feelings is un- 
 der no legal control. Now, however men may 
 think this ought to be, the fact is that the 
 people of the United States have chosen to im- 
 pose control on State sovereignties. There 
 are those, doubtless, who wish they had been 
 left without restraint ; but the Constitution has 
 ordered the matter differently. To make war, 
 for instance, is an exercise of sovereignty ; but 
 the Constitution declares that no State shall 
 make war. To coin money is another exercise 
 of sovereign power ; but no State is at liberty 
 to coin money. Again, the Constitution says 
 that no sovereign State shall be so sovereign as 
 to make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must 
 be confessed, are a control on the State sov- 
 ereignty of South Carolina, as well as of the 
 other States, which does not arise " from her 
 own feelings of honorable justice." The opinion 
 referred to, therefore, is in defiance of the plain- 
 est provisions of the Constitution. 
 
 There are other proceedings of public bodies 
 which have already been alluded to, and to which 
 I refer again, for the purpose of ascertaining
 
 REPLY TO IIAYNE. 2 $7 
 
 more fully what is the length and breadth of 
 that doctrine denominated the Carolina doctrine, 
 which the honorable member has now stood up 
 on this floor to maintain. In one of them I 
 find it resolved, that " the tariff of 1828, and 
 every other tariff designed to promote one 
 branch of industry at the expense of others, is 
 contrary to the meaning and intention of the 
 federal compact, and such a dangerous, palpa- 
 ble, and deliberate usurpation of power, by a 
 determined majority, wielding the General Gov- 
 ernment beyond the limits of its delegated 
 powers, as calls upon the States which compose 
 the suffering minority, in their sovereign capac- 
 ity, to exercise the powers which, as sovereigns, 
 necessarily devolve upon them when their con- 
 tract is violated." 
 
 Observe, sir, that this resolution holds the 
 tariff of 1828, and every other tariff designed to 
 promote one branch of industry at the expense 
 of another, to be such a dangerous, palpable, 
 and deliberate usurpation of power, as calls 
 upon the States, in their sovereign capacity, to 
 interfere by their own authority. This denun- 
 ciation, Mr. President, you will please to ob- 
 serve, includes our old tariff of 1816, as well as 
 all others ; because that was established to pro-
 
 258 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 mote the interest of the manufacturers of cot- 
 ton, to the manifest and admitted injury of the 
 Calcutta cotton trade. Observe, again, that all 
 the qualifications are here rehearsed and charged 
 upon the tariff, which are necessary to bring 
 the case within the gentleman's proposition. 
 The tariff is a usurpation ; it is a dangerous 
 usurpation ; it is a palpable usurpation ; it is a 
 deliberate usurpation. It is such a usurpation, 
 therefore, as calls upon the States to exercise 
 their right of interference. Here is a case, 
 then, within the gentleman's principles, and all 
 his qualifications of his principles. It is a case 
 for action. The Constitution is plainly, dan- 
 gerously, palpably, and deliberately violated ; 
 and the States must interpose their own author- 
 ity to arrest the law. Let us suppose the State 
 of South Carolina to express the same opinion, 
 by the voice of her Legislature. That would 
 be very imposing ; but what then ? It so hap- 
 pens that, at the very moment, when South 
 Carolina resolves that the tariff laws are uncon- 
 stitutional, Pennsylvania and Kentucky resolve 
 exactly the reverse. They hold those laws to 
 be both highly proper and strictly constitu- 
 tional. And now, sir, how does the honorable 
 member propose to deal with this case ? How
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 2 $9 
 
 does he relieve us from this difficulty upon any 
 principle of his ? His construction gets us into 
 it ; how does he propose to get us out ? 
 
 In Carolina the tariff is a palpable, deliberate 
 usurpation ; Carolina, therefore, may nullify it, 
 and refuse to pay the duties. In Pennsylvania 
 it is both clearly constitutional and highly ex- 
 pedient ; and there the duties are to be paid. 
 And yet we live under a government of uniform 
 laws, and under a constitution, too, which con- 
 tains an express provision, as it happens, that 
 all duties shall be equal in all States. Does not 
 this approach absurdity ? 
 
 If there be no power to settle such questions, 
 independent of either of the States, is not the 
 whole Union a rope of sand ? Are we not 
 thrown back again precisely upon the old Con- 
 federation ? 
 
 It is too plain to be argued. Four-and- 
 twenty interpreters of constitutional law, each 
 with a power to decide for itself, and none 
 with authority to bind any body else, and this 
 constitutional law the only bond of their 
 union ! What is such a state of things but a 
 mere connection during pleasure, or to use the 
 phraseology of the times, during feeling ? And 
 that feeling, too, not the feeling of the people,
 
 260 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 who established the Constitution, but the feel- 
 ing of the State governments. 
 
 In another of the South Carolina addresses, 
 having premised that the crisis requires " all 
 the concentrated energy of passion," an atti- 
 tude of open resistance to the laws of the 
 Union is advised. Open resistance to the laws, 
 then, is the constitutional remedy, the conserva- 
 tive power of the State, which the South Caro- 
 lina doctrines teach for the redress of politi- 
 cal evils, real or imaginary. And its authors 
 further say, that, appealing with confidence to 
 the Constitution itself, to justify their opinions, 
 they cannot consent to try their accuracy by 
 the courts of justice. In one sense, indeed, 
 sir, this is assuming an attitude of open resist- 
 ance in favor of liberty. But what sort of lib- 
 erty? The liberty of establishing their own 
 opinions, in defiance of the opinions of all 
 others ; the liberty of judging and deciding ex- 
 clusively themselves, in a matter in which oth- 
 ers have as much right to judge and decide as 
 they ; the liberty of placing their own opinion 
 above the judgment of all others, above the 
 laws, and above the Constitution. This is their 
 liberty, and this is the fair result of the propo- 
 sition contended for by the honorable gentle-
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 261 
 
 man. Or, it may be more properly said, it is 
 identical with it, rather than a result from 
 
 f ( * tt 
 
 Sir, the human mind is so constituted, that 
 the merits of both sides of a controversy ap- 
 pear very clear, and very palpable, to those 
 who respectively espouse them ; and both sides 
 usually grow clearer as the controversy ad- 
 vances. South Carolina sees unconstitution- 
 ally in the tariff ; she sees oppression there 
 also, and she sees danger. Pennsylvania, with 
 a vision not less sharp, looks at the same tariff, 
 and sees no such thing in it ; she sees it all 
 constitutional, all useful, all safe. The faith of 
 South Carolina is strengthened by opposition, 
 and she now not only sees, but resolves, that 
 the tariff is palpably unconstitutional, oppres- 
 sive, and dangerous ; but Pennsylvania, not to 
 be behind her neighbors, and equally willing to 
 strengthen her own faith by a confident assever- 
 ation resolves, also, and gives to every warm af- 
 firmative of South Carolina, a plain, downright, 
 Pennsylvania negative. South Carolina, to 
 show the strength and unity of her opinion, 
 brings her assembly to a unanimity, within 
 seven voices ; Pennsylvania, not to be outdone 
 in this respect any more than in others, reduces
 
 262 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 her dissentient fraction to a single vote. Now, 
 sir, again, I ask the gentleman, What is to be 
 done ? Are these States both right ? Is he 
 bound to consider them both right? If not, 
 which is in the wrong? or, rather, which has 
 the best right to decide ? And if he, and if I, 
 are not to know what the Constitution means, 
 and what it is, till those two State legislatures, 
 and the twenty-two others, shall agree in its 
 construction, what have we sworn to, when we 
 have sworn to maintain it ? I was forcibly 
 struck, sir, with one reflection, as the gentle- 
 man went on in his speech. He quoted Mr. 
 Madison's resolutions, to prove that a State 
 may interfere, in a case of deliberate, palpable, 
 and dangerous exercise of a power not granted. 
 The honorable member supposes the tariff law 
 to be such an exercise of power ; and that con- 
 sequently a case has arisen in which the State 
 may, if it see fit, interfere by its own law. Now 
 it so happens, nevertheless, that Mr. Madison 
 deems this same tariff law quite constitutional. 
 Instead of a clear and palpable violation, it is, 
 in his judgment, no violation at all. So that, 
 while they use his authority in a hypothetical 
 case, they reject it in the very case before 
 them. All this, sir, shows the inherent futility,
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 263 
 
 I had almost used a stronger word, of conced- 
 ing this power of interference to the State, and 
 then attempting to secure it from abuse by im- 
 posing qualifications of which the States them- 
 selves are to judge. One of two things is true ; 
 either the laws of the Union are beyond the dis- 
 cretion and beyond the control of the States ; 
 or else we have no constitution of general gov- 
 ernment, and are thrust back again to the 
 days of the Confederation. * * * 
 
 I must now beg to ask, sir, whence is this 
 supposed right of the States derived ? Where 
 do they find the power to interfere with the 
 laws of the Union ? Sir, the opinion which the 
 honorable gentleman maintains, is a notion 
 founded in a total misapprehension, in my 
 judgment, of the origin of this government, 
 and of the foundation on which it stands. I 
 hold it to be a popular government, erected by 
 the people ; those who administer it, responsi- 
 ble to the people ; and itself capable of being 
 amended and modified, just as the people may 
 choose it should be. It is as popular, just as 
 truly emanating from the people, as the State 
 governments. It is created for one purpose ; 
 the State governments for another. It has its 
 own powers ; they have theirs. There is no
 
 264 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 more authority with them to arrest the opera- 
 tion of a law of Congress, than with Congress 
 to arrest the operation of their laws. We are 
 here to administer a constitution emanating 
 immediately from the people, and trusted by 
 them to our administration. It is not the 
 creature of the State governments. * * * 
 
 This government, sir, is the independent off- 
 spring of the popular will. It is not the 
 creature of State legislatures ; nay, more, if 
 the whole truth must be told, the people 
 brought it into existence, established it, and 
 have hitherto supported it, for the very purpose 
 amongst others, of imposing certain salutary 
 restraints on State sovereignties. The States 
 cannot now make war ; they cannot contract 
 alliances ; they cannot make, each for itself, 
 separate regulations of commerce ; they cannot 
 lay imposts ; they cannot coin money. If this 
 Constitution, sir, be the creature of State legis- 
 latures, it must be admitted that it has obtained 
 a strange control over the volitions of its crea- 
 tors. 
 
 The people, then, sir, erected this govern- 
 ment. They gave it a constitution, and in that 
 constitution they have enumerated the powers 
 which they bestow on it. They have made it
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 265 
 
 a limited government. They have defined its 
 authority. They have restrained it to the ex- 
 ercise of such powers as are granted ; and all 
 others, they declare, are reserved to the States, 
 or the people. But, sir, they have not stopped 
 here. If they had, they would have accom- 
 plished but half their work. No definition 
 can be so clear as to avoid the possibility of 
 doubt ; no limitation so precise, as to exclude 
 all uncertainty. Who, then, shall construe this 
 grant of the people ? Who shall interpret their 
 will, where it may be supposed they have left 
 it doubtful ? With whom do they repose this 
 ultimate right of deciding on the powers of the 
 government ? Sir, they have settled all this in 
 the fullest manner. They have left it with the 
 government itself, in its appropriate branches. 
 Sir, the very chief end, the main design, for 
 which the whole Constitution was framed and 
 adopted, was to establish a government that 
 should not be obliged to act through State 
 agency, or depend on State opinion or State 
 discretion. The people had had quite enough 
 of that kind of government under the Confeder- 
 ation. Under that system, the legal action, the 
 application of law to individuals, belonged ex- 
 clusively to the States. Congress could only
 
 266 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 recommend ; their acts were not of binding 
 force, till the States had adopted and sanctioned 
 them. Are we in that condition still? Are 
 we yet at the mercy of State discretion and 
 State construction ? Sir, if we are, then vain 
 will be our attempt to maintain the Constitu- 
 tion under which we sit. 
 
 But, sir, the people have wisely provided, 
 in the Constitution itself, a proper, suitable 
 mode and tribunal for settling questions of con- 
 stitutional law. There are in the Constitution 
 grants of powers to Congress, and restrictions 
 on these powers. There are also prohibitions 
 on the States. Some authority must, there- 
 fore, necessarily exist, having the ultimate 
 jurisdiction to fix and ascertain the interpreta- 
 tion of these grants, restrictions, and prohibi- 
 tions. The Constitution has itself pointed out, 
 ordained, and established that authority. How 
 has it accomplished this great and essential 
 end ? By declaring, sir, that " the Constitution 
 and the laws of the United States made in pur- 
 suance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the 
 land, any thing in the Constitution or laws of 
 any State to the contrary notwithstanding" 
 
 This, sir, was the first great step. By this 
 the supremacy of the Constitution and the laws
 
 REPL V TO HA YNE. 267 
 
 of the United States is declared. The people 
 so will it. No State law is to be valid which 
 comes in conflict with the Constitution, or any 
 law of the United States passed in pursuance 
 of it. But who shall decide this question of 
 interference ? To whom lies the last appeal ? 
 This, sir, the Constitution itself decides also, by 
 declaring, " that the judicial power shall extend 
 to all cases arising under the Constitution and 
 laws of the United States" These two pro- 
 visions cover the whole ground. They are, in 
 truth, the keystone of the arch ! With these it 
 is a government, without them a confedera- 
 tion. In pursuance of these clear and express 
 provisions, Congress established, at its very first 
 session, in the judicial act, a mode for carrying 
 them into full effect, and for bringing all ques- 
 tions of constitutional power to the final decision 
 of the Supreme Court. It then, sir, became a 
 government. It then had the means of self- 
 protection ; and but for this, it would, in all 
 probability, have been now among things which 
 are past. Having constituted the Government, 
 and declared its powers, the people have fur- 
 ther said, that, since somebody must decide on 
 the extent of these powers, the Government 
 shall itself decide ; subject, always, like other
 
 268 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 popular governments, to its responsibility to the 
 people. And now, sir, I repeat, how is it that 
 a State legislature acquires any power to inter- 
 fere ? Who, or what gives them the right to 
 say to the people : " We, who are your agents 
 and servants for one purpose, will undertake to 
 decide, that your other agents and servants, 
 appointed by you for another purpose, have 
 transcended the authority you gave them ! " 
 The reply would be, I think, not impertinent : 
 " Who made you a judge over another's ser- 
 vants ? To their own masters they stand or 
 fall." 
 
 Sir, I deny this power of State legislatures 
 altogether. It cannot stand the test of examina- 
 tion. Gentlemen may say, that, in an extreme 
 case, a State government may protect the people 
 from intolerable oppression. Sir, in such a case 
 the people might protect themselves without 
 the aid of the State governments. Such a case 
 warrants revolution. It must make, when it 
 comes, a law for itself. A nullifying act of a 
 State legislature cannot alter the case, nor make 
 resistance any more lawful. In maintaining 
 these sentiments, sir, I am but asserting the 
 rights of the people. I state what they have 
 declared, and insist on their right to declare it.
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 269 
 
 They have chosen to repose this power in the 
 General Government, and I think it my duty to 
 support it like other constitutional powers. 
 
 For myself, sir, I do not admit the compe- 
 tency of South Carolina or any other State to 
 prescribe my constitutional duty ; or to settle, 
 between me and the people the validity of laws 
 of Congress for which I have voted. I decline 
 her umpirage. I have not sworn to support the 
 Constitution according to her construction of 
 the clauses. I have not stipulated by my oath 
 of office or otherwise, to come under any respon- 
 sibility, except to the people, and those whom 
 they have appointed to pass upon the question, 
 whether laws, supported by my votes, conform 
 to the Constitution of the country. And, 
 sir, if we look to the general nature of the 
 case, could any thing have been more pre- 
 posterous than to make a government for 
 the whole Union, and yet leave its powers 
 subject, not to one interpretation, but to thirteen 
 or twenty-four interpretations ? Instead of one 
 tribunal, established by all, responsible to all, 
 with power to decide for all, shall constitu- 
 tional questions be left to four-and-twenty 
 popular bodies, each at liberty to decide for it- 
 self, and none bound to respect the decisions
 
 2/0 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 of others ; and each at liberty, too, to give a 
 new constitution on every new election of its 
 own members ? Would any thing, with such a 
 principle in it, or rather with such a destitution 
 of all principle be fit to be called a government ? 
 No, sir. It should not be denominated a con- 
 stitution. It should be called, rather, a collec- 
 tion of topics for everlasting controversy ; heads 
 of debate for a disputatious people. It would 
 not be a government. It would not be adequate 
 to any practical good, or fit for any country to 
 live under. 
 
 To avoid all possibility of being misunder- 
 stood, allow me to repeat again in the fullest 
 manner, that I claim no powers for the govern- 
 ment by forced or unfair construction. I admit 
 that it is a government of strictly limited 
 powers ; of enumerated, specified, and particular- 
 ized powers ; and that whatsoever is not granted 
 is witheld. But notwithstanding all this, and 
 however the grant of powers may be expressed, 
 its limit and extent may yet, in some cases, 
 admit of doubt ; and the General Government 
 would be good for nothing, it would be in- 
 capable of long existing, if some mode had not 
 been provided in which those doubts as they 
 should arise, might be peaceably but authori- 
 tatively solved.
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 2/1 
 
 And now, Mr. President, let me run the hon- 
 orable gentleman's doctrine a little into its 
 practical application. Let us look at his proba- 
 ble modus operandi. If a thing can be done, 
 an ingenious man can tell how it is to be done, 
 and I wish to be informed how this State inter- 
 ference is to be put in practice, without vio- 
 lence, bloodshed, and rebellion. We will take 
 the existing case of the tariff law. South Caro- 
 lina is said to have made up her opinion upon 
 it. If we do not repeal it (as we probably shall 
 not), she will then apply to the case the remedy 
 of her doctrine. She will, we must suppose, 
 pass a law of her legislature, declaring the 
 several acts of Congress, usually called the 
 tariff laws, null and void, so far as they respect 
 South Carolina, or the citizens thereof. So 
 far, all is a paper transaction, and easy enough. 
 But the collector at Charleston is collecting the 
 duties imposed by these tariff laws. He, there- 
 fore, must be stopped. The collector will seize 
 the goods if the tariff duties are not paid. The 
 State authorities will undertake their rescue, 
 the marshal, with his posse, will come to the 
 collector's aid, and here the contest begins. 
 The militia of the State will be called out to 
 sustain the nullifying act. They will march,
 
 272 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 sir, under a very gallant leader ; for I believe 
 the honorable member himself commands the 
 militia of that part of the State. He will raise 
 the NULLIFYING ACT on his standard, and 
 spread it out as his banner ! It will have a pre- 
 amble, setting forth, that the tariff laws are pal- 
 pable, deliberate, and dangerous violations of 
 the Constitution ! He will proceed, with this 
 banner flying, to the custom-house in Charles- 
 ton, 
 
 " All the while, 
 Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds." 
 
 Arrived at the custom-house, he will tell the 
 collector that he must collect no more duties 
 under any of the tariff laws. This he will be 
 somewhat puzzled to say, by the way, with a 
 grave countenance, considering what hand 
 South Carolina herself had in that of 1816. 
 But, sir, the collector would not, probably, de- 
 sist at his bidding. He would show him the 
 law of Congress, the treasury instruction, and 
 his own oath of office. He would say, he 
 should perform his duty, come what come 
 might. 
 
 Here would ensue a pause ; for they say that 
 a certain stillness precedes the tempest. The
 
 RE PL Y TO HA YNE. 2/3 
 
 trumpeter would hold his breath awhile, and 
 before all this military array should fall on the 
 custom-house, collector, clerks, and all, it is 
 very probable some of those composing it 
 would request of their gallant commander-in- 
 chief to be informed upon a little point of law ; 
 for they have doubtless, a just respect for his 
 opinions as a lawyer, as well as for his bravery 
 as a soldier. They know he has read Black- 
 stone and the Constitution, as well as Turenne 
 and Vauban. They would ask him, therefore, 
 somewhat concerning their rights in this mat- 
 ter. They would inquire whether it was not 
 somewhat dangerous to resist a law of the 
 United States. What would be the nature of 
 their offence, they would wish to learn, if they, 
 by military force and array, resisted the execu- 
 tion in Carolina of a law of the United States, 
 and it should turn out, after all, that the 
 law was constitutional ? He would answer, of 
 course, treason. No lawyer could give any 
 other answer. John Fries, he would tell them, 
 had learned that some years ago. How, then, 
 they would ask, do you propose to defend us? 
 We are not afraid of bullets, but treason has 
 a way of taking people off that we do not 
 much relish. How do you propose to defend
 
 2/4 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 us? "Look at my floating banner," he would 
 reply ; " see there the nullifying law ! " 
 
 Is it your opinion, gallant commander, they 
 would then say, that, if we should be indicted 
 for treason, that same floating banner of yours 
 would make a good plea in bar? " South Caro- 
 lina is a sovereign State," he would reply. 
 That is true ; but would the judge admit our 
 plea? " These tariff laws," he would repeat, 
 "are unconstitutional, palpably, deliberately, 
 dangerously." That may all be so ; but if the 
 tribunal should not happen to be of that opin- 
 ion, shall we swing for it ? We are ready to 
 die for our country, but it is rather an awkward 
 business, this dying without touching the 
 ground ! After all, that is a sort of hemp tax 
 worse than any part of the tariff. 
 
 Mr. President, the honorable gentleman 
 would be in a dilemma, like that of another 
 great general. He would have a knot before 
 him which he could not untie. He must cut it 
 with his sword. He must say to his followers, 
 " Defend yourselves with your bayonets " ; and 
 this is war civil war. 
 
 Direct collision, therefore, between force and 
 force, is the unavoidable result of that remedy 
 for the revision of unconstitutional laws which
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 2?$ 
 
 the gentleman contends for. It must happen 
 in the very first case to which it is applied. Is 
 not this the plain result? To resist by force 
 the execution of a law, generally, is treason. 
 Can the courts of the United States take notice 
 of the indulgence of a State to commit treason ? 
 The common saying, that a State cannot com- 
 mit treason herself, is nothing to the purpose. 
 Can she authorize others to do it ? If John 
 Fries had produced an act of Pennsylvania, 
 annulling the law of Congress, would it have 
 helped his case? Talk about it as we will, 
 these doctrines go the length of revolution. 
 They are incompatible with any peaceable ad- 
 ministration of the government. They lead 
 directly to disunion and civil commotion ; and 
 therefore it is, that at their commencement, 
 when they are first found to be maintained by 
 respectable men, and in a tangible form, I enter 
 my public protest against them all. 
 
 The honorable gentleman argues that, if this 
 Government be the sole judge of the extent of 
 its own powers, whether that right of judging 
 be in Congress or the Supreme Court, it equally 
 subverts State sovereignty. This the gentle- 
 man sees, or thinks he sees, although he cannot 
 perceive how the right of judging, in this mat-
 
 2/6 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 ter, if left to the exercise of State legislatures, 
 has any tendency to subvert the government of 
 the Union. The gentleman's opinion may be, 
 that the right ought not to have been lodged 
 with the General Government ; he may like 
 better such a Constitution as we should have 
 had under the right of State interference ; but 
 I ask him to meet me on the plain matter of 
 fact. I ask him to meet me on the Constitu- 
 tion itself. I ask him if the power is not found 
 there, clearly and visibly found there ? 
 
 But, sir, what is this danger, and what are 
 the grounds of it ? Let it be remembered that 
 the Constitution of the United States is not 
 unalterable. It is to continue in its present 
 form no longer than the people who established 
 it shall choose to continue it. If they shall be- 
 come convinced that they have made an injudi- 
 cious or inexpedient partition and distribution 
 of power between the State governments and 
 the General Government, they can alter that 
 distribution at will. 
 
 If any thing be found in the national Consti- 
 tution, either by original provision or subse- 
 quent interpretation, which ought not to be in 
 it, the people know how to get rid of it. If 
 any construction, unacceptable to them, be
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 277 
 
 established so as to become practically a part 
 of the Constitution, they will amend it, at their 
 own sovereign pleasure. But while the people 
 choose to maintain it as it is, while they are 
 satisfied with it, and refuse to change it, who 
 has given, or who can give, to the legislatures a 
 right to alter it, either by interference, con- 
 struction, or otherwise ? Gentlemen do not 
 seem to recollect that the people have any 
 power to do any thing for themselves. They 
 imagine there is no safety for them, any longer 
 than they are under the close guardianship of 
 the State legislatures. Sir, the people have 
 not trusted their safety, in regard to the Gen- 
 eral Constitution, to these hands. They have 
 required other security, and taken other bonds. 
 They have chosen to trust themselves, first, to 
 the plain words of the instrument, and to such 
 construction as the Government themselves, in 
 doubtful cases, should put on their powers, 
 under their oaths of office, and subject to their 
 responsibility to them, just as the people of a 
 State trust to their own governments with a 
 similar power. Secondly, they have reposed 
 their trust in the efficacy of frequent elections, 
 and in their own power to remove their own 
 servants and agents whenever they see cause.
 
 2/8 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 Thirdly, they have reposed trust in the judicial 
 power, which, in order that it might be trust- 
 worthy, they have made as respectable, as dis- 
 interested, and as independent as was practica- 
 ble. Fourthly, they have seen fit to rely, in 
 case of necessity, or high expediency, on their 
 known and admitted power to alter or amend 
 the Constitution, peaceably and quietly, when- 
 ever experience shall point out defects or im- 
 perfections. And, finally, the people of the 
 United States have at no time, in no way, 
 directly or indirectly, authorized any State leg- 
 islature to construe or interpret their high in- 
 strument of government ; much less to inter- 
 fere, by their own power, to arrest its course 
 and operation. 
 
 If, sir, the people in these respects had done 
 otherwise than they have done, their Constitu- 
 tion could neither have been preserved, nor 
 would it have been worth preserving. And if 
 its plain provisions shall now be disregarded, 
 and these new doctrines interpolated in it, it 
 will become as feeble and helpless a being as its 
 enemies, whether early or more recent, could 
 possibly desire. It will exist in every State 
 but as a poor dependent on State permission. 
 It must borrow leave to be ; and will be, no
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 2?$ 
 
 longer than State pleasure, or State discretion, 
 sees fit to grant the indulgence, and to prolong 
 its poor existence. 
 
 But, sir, although there are fears, there are 
 hopes also. The people have preserved this, 
 their own chosen Constitution, for forty years, 
 and have seen their happiness, prosperity, and 
 renown grow with its growth, and strengthen 
 with its strength. They are now, generally, 
 strongly attached to it. Overthrown by direct 
 assault, it cannot be ; evaded, undermined, 
 NULLIFIED, it will not be, if we, and those who 
 shall succeed us here, as agents and representa- 
 tives of the people, shall conscientiously and 
 vigilantly discharge the two great branches of 
 our public trust, faithfully to preserve and 
 wisely to administer it. 
 
 Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons 
 of my dissent to the doctrines which have been 
 advanced and maintained. I am conscious of 
 having detained you and the Senate much too 
 long. I was drawn into the debate with no 
 previous deliberation, such as is suited to the 
 discussion of so grave and important a subject. 
 But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and 
 I have not been willing to suppress the utter- 
 ance of its spontaneous sentiments. I cannot,
 
 28O DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 even now, persuade myself to relinquish it, 
 without expressing, once more my deep con- 
 viction, that, since it respects nothing less than 
 the union of the States, it is of most vital and 
 essential importance to the public happiness. 
 I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have 
 kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor 
 of the whole country, and the preservation of 
 our Federal Union. It is to that Union we 
 owe our safety at home, and our consideration 
 and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that 
 we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us 
 most proud of our country. That Union we 
 reached only by the discipline of our virtues in 
 the severe school of adversity. It had its origin 
 in the necessities of disordered finance, pros- 
 trate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its 
 benign influences, these great interests im- 
 mediately awoke, as from the dead, and sprang 
 forth with newness of life. Every year of its 
 duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its 
 utility and its blessings ; and although our ter- 
 ritory has stretched out wider and wider, and 
 our population spread farther and farther, 
 they have not outrun its protection or its bene- 
 fits. It has been to us all a copious fountain 
 of national, social, and personal happiness.
 
 REPLY TO HAYNE. 28 1 
 
 I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond 
 the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the 
 dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed 
 the chances of preserving liberty when the 
 bonds that unite us together shall be broken 
 asunder. I have not accustomed myself to 
 hang over the precipice of disunion, to see 
 whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the 
 depth of the abyss below ; nor could I regard 
 him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this Gov- 
 ernment, whose thoughts should be mainly bent 
 on considering, not how the Union may be best 
 preserved, but how tolerable might be the condi- 
 tion of the people when it should be broken up 
 and destroyed. While the Union lasts we have 
 high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out 
 before us, for us and our children. Beyond 
 that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God 
 grant that in my day at least that curtain may 
 not rise ! God grant that on my vision never 
 may be opened what lies behind ! When my 
 eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time 
 the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining 
 on the broken and dishonored fragments of a 
 once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, dis- 
 cordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil 
 feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal
 
 282 DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering 
 glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of 
 the Republic, now known and honored through- 
 out the earth, still full high advanced, its arms 
 and trophies streaming in their original lustre, 
 not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star 
 obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miser- 
 able interrogotary as " What is all this worth ? " 
 nor those other words of delusion and folly, 
 " Liberty first and Union afterward " ; but 
 everywhere, spread all over in characters of 
 living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as 
 they float over the sea and over the land, and 
 in every wind under the whole heavens, that 
 other sentiment, dear to every true American 
 heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, 
 one and inseparable !
 
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