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SENATE.]

New Jersey Memorials.

[APRIL 23, 1834.

ed by 805 of its inhabitants.. It deserved regard, inas-tration of the laws, in the faithfulness of public agents, much as that county has been uniformly friendly to the and in the currency of the country. Does any Senator present Executive, giving, at all times, a great majority seriously doubt the justice of their opinion?

in his favor. The memorial is not signed by a majority: of the voters-but it is signed by many more, about one fourth, he believed, than have, on any occasion, voted in opposition to General Jackson-thus showing that, where he has been most strong, there are now some to be found who will not sustain him in the career which he is running. They believe that he has acted unwisely and injuriously to the public interests, and are willing to forego their personal preferences and maintain the majesty of the laws. Mr. S. had another memorial, of a different characterone which might be regarded, not as local, but general. He had heretofore presented memorials and proceedings in towns and counties-from all the counties in West Jersey below Trenton. The one which he had just offered from Warren, came from the upper part of the State; and he had now to ask attention to the proceedings of a meeting held in Trenton, by delegates appointed in the several counties-from all in the State, he believed, but two or three-and as the members of the Senate who took the trouble to read certain prints, had seen this meeting described in terms which he could not consent to repeat, he begged to assure them of the entire malignity and falsehood of those representations.

They further express a conviction, that the assumption of législative power, by the Executive, is just cause of alarm; as uniting the purse and the sword-a combination dangerous to liberty; and that the removal of a public officer, because he would not submit to unlawful dictation, was an unjustifiable act; and they believe that there can be no certain relief but by restoring confidence, and by confining every department of the Government to its appropriate sphere. Is not this opinion well founded?

The persons who composed this convention came from almost every part of the State; have the amplest means of knowing popular opinion, and no possible motive for misrepresentation; and they assure us that a large majority of the people of New Jersey strongly condemn the conduct of the Executive, and reprobate the instructions given by the legislature. I cannot doubt the correctness of their declaration on this point.

They were not all of one party; not all of those who have heretofore opposed General Jackson's elevation to office. The presiding officer of the convention is an eminent and praiseworthy instance of that honesty of purpose and devotion to country, which withdraw sup. port from a favorite candidate when he deserts his proIt had been the fortune of his colleague and himself, fessed principles, and disregards the obligation of duty. whenever they were favored with memorials or resolu- He had, as an elector, voted for General Jackson, but he tions from their constituents, almost uniformly to be met is prompt to aid in correcting his errors, and frank in exin advance by base misrepresentations of the character, posing the dangers which result from his misconduct. and conduct, and numbers, of those from whom they The convention felt that this was no ordinary occasion, were received. It was, he presumed, a part of the tac- and they appointed a large committee to bring their protics of the friends of the administration to endeavor to ceedings to this place, and they now attend in this Hall, weaken the force of representations which might come to witness their presentation to the Senate. Shall it be from the State, by casting odium on those who made of no avail? Will a deaf ear be still turned to the comthem. It was but a part of that intolerant and proscrip- plaints and sufferings of the people whom they represent? tive system which has been introduced and exercised Permit me to assure the Senate that the sentiments of the with so much force and power, for a few years past, in people of New Jersey are no longer doubtful. They will relation to all who have been dismissed from office, to not patiently bear unmerited inflictions. They will not make room for hungry expectants, and to all who had in- suffer for the sake of an experiment. They will not redependence enough to question the infallibility of power. gard with favor those who spurn the obligations of law, The same trick had been attempted in the present in- and hazard the safety of our institutions. They will come stance, and remarks made respecting the convention in up to the aid of those who struggle against assumptions Trenton, which no honest man who knows the individuals who composed it, can countenance.

of unlicensed authority. They love the prosperity of their country and sacredness of her laws, far beyond the claims of party or individual partialities.

Mr. S. moved the usual orders on the several memorials and proceedings.

The time for this convention was unluckily chosen, on account of the roads, weather, and employments of the people in the State. It was on the 2d of April. The roads and weather were bad. A few days delay would have Mr. CLAY rose and said: Honored by the request of greatly augmented the numbers: there were, however, the highly respectable and numerous committee, now atupwards of two hundred delegates; and I do not hesi- tending in this city, and representing the people of New tate to declare, that there has never assembled in that Jersey, in convention assembled, I rise to add a few obserState, a meeting of any equal number, of higher respect-vations to what has been so well said by their immediate ability of character, of more intelligence, or of greater organ. The proceedings just presented to the Senate personal worth. There were many in that convention emi- emanate from an unquestionably legitimate source-the nently qualified to discharge the duties of public officers, people themselves, acting in their primary and original and to represent their constituents. They were men, too, character. They have a right to instruct, direct, and conwho would not have left their homes and subjected them-trol their servants, subject to very few exceptions. They selves to the inconvenience of attending the convention have this right, because the people, or a majority of the for light or trivial causes. They felt deeply the impor

tance of the occasion.

They were perfectly capable of comprehending the situation of the country-its necessities and its wants. They represent to us a prevailing distress in business, and depression of all the interests of the community? Will not the Senate give credit to their representation?

people, in the several States, have the power to alter, abolish, and modify, the structure of their Government; and, as the major includes the minor, they necessarily possess the right to direct the operations of that machine whose form and existence depend upon their will, and has been constructed for their benefit.

The right of legislative bodies to instruct is not inhe They could understand thoroughly the cause of the rent; but, if it exist at all, is derivative. They are but present embarrassments; and they attribute it to the con- servants of the people, highly respectable; and an exduct of the Executive, in assuming legislative powers, and pression of their opinion deserves great attention and deunlawfully interfering with the public Treasury, and re-liberate consideration. But this results not from their moving the public money from the place where it was de-possessing any original right in themselves, independent posited, under the authority of the law. This misconduct of the people. It flows from the presumptive evidence created insecurity and want of confidence in the adminis- which a declaration of their sentiments affords, of theirs

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being the sentiments of the people whom they represent. Standing by itself, and alone, such a declaration is strong proof of its being a true representation and fair reflection of the popular will. But it is only evidence. Suppose it is contradicted by other and conclusive testimony, issuing directly from the people-which is to be obeyed, the will of the legislature or the will of the people?

[SENATE.

tled to and command more respect, if he would only, by his example, conform to them. How has he treated the petitions and remonstrances of the people? How their earnest and anxious supplications to save them from ruin? Has he displayed a readiness to obey the wishes and desires of the people? Has he not promulgated to the world, through committees that have waited upon him, that neither the legislatures of the States, nor the people Now, it so happens that, along with the instructions of themselves, shall divert him from his mad experiment, the legislature of New Jersey to their Senators, to sustain now threatening us with general bankruptcy? He has cut the late executive measures, there came or has followed himself loose, totally absolved himself from all obligation abundant proof, from the people themselves, that those to shape his measures according to public opinion, and instructions were not in conformity to their wishes; and comes to the Senate to inculcate upon us the duty of comthe people of that State, in convention assembled, have plying with instructions from legislative bodies which solemnly declared that the legislature did not truly ex happen to be laudatory of his measures-instructions pospress their will. Which, then, were the Senators from sibly manufactured and got up in this very city, to be New Jersey to obey-the people, or their servants, the transmitted to market, in order to be brought back again members of the local legislature? Suppose they had con- in the imposing form of authoritative commands. formed to the legislative will, in opposition to the popular The convention of the people of New Jersey, comwill? or suppose, obeying neither, they had resigned posed of upwards of 200 members, from every county in their seats and gone home, what would their constituents the State except two, which were not represented, from have said? Would they not have presented a ridiculous a misapprehension of the time of the meeting of the conspectacle? What could they have said to the inquiry, Why vention, express the deliberate opinion that the existing have you come home when we instructed you to pursue distress is attributable to the Executive measures and a particular course? Would it have been any defence for them to say, We come back, because, not choosing to obey you, the people, we did not think proper to comply with the legislative mandate?

their necessary consequences. New Jersey might be properly called the State of beautiful villages. They are now all, with more or less intensity, sharing the pervading distress so unwisely and unnecessarily brought upon The President, in his late extraordinary protest, has set our country. In the lately flourishing and enterprising forth, at large, the instructions given by the several legis- town of Paterson, I understand that, of twenty manulatures of Maine, New Jersey, and Ohio, to their respec- factories, only two are in operation; and that stout, abletive Senators. At another time, I shall inquire by what bodied men, willing and anxious by their labor to earn right the President comes into this Senate and examines an honest subsistence, have been driven upon the eleehow, upon what considerations, and under what circum-mosynary support which is to be obtained in poorstances, particular members of this body vote in a par- houses.

ticular way on questions pending before it. He asserts,

The convention denounce the scheme of a metallic ciror plainly means, by his statement of the case, to imply, culation, as wild, visionary, and impracticable. It is not that these Senators, in voting against his measures, vio- more visionary than it is deceptive. It has been an afterlated their duty and their obligations. A just rule must thought altogether. Neither in the celebrated paper work both ways. Has the President ascertained how read to the cabinet by the President, nor in the report of many members of this or the other House, in voting to the Secretary of the Treasury of his reasons for the resustain his measures, have failed truly to represent their moval of the deposites, was such a project hinted at. constituents? Would he rebuke any members who lent They promised a better currency, but it was one to be themselves to his support, contrary to the wishes of their furnished by local banks. Such is the real scheme now constituents? Let me suppose that there was a sufficient in contemplation. But to deceive the people, this nonumber of members voting with him on the deposite tion of a metallic currency is put forth; and what has question, in opposition to the known sentiments of their been the necessary consequences? The people have beconstituents, to have produced such a decision as has been come distrustful of all bank notes. Seeing those who pronounced in the other House, would he chide them? speak the Executive sentiments decrying all bank notes, If a Speaker of that House, in direct contradiction to the they have lost the confidence of the people. Not knowascertained sense of his constituents, were to vote to up-ing how soon they are to be put down, the holders of hold the Executive proceeding, would the President say them have hastened to exchange them for the medium to him, Mr. Speaker, you are wrong in sustaining me in which they have supposed is shortly to become the only opposition to your constituents? medium, and to hoard it. This has occasioned runs upon Whether Senators have or have not conformed to the the banks; and these runs have exploded some and sentiments of their constituents, is a question between threatened others. This has produced a panic; and those themselves and those they represent, in which there ex-are answerable for it who ought to know how impossible ists no right of any foreign intervention. I have no it is, in the present state of credit and of the commercial doubt that my friends from New Jersey have truly ex-world, to discontinue the use of a convertible paper, and pressed the sentiments of that patriotic State, among yet have idly proposed a plan of an exclusive specie cirthe first of the Whig States of the Revolution, and which culation.

is not going to be among the last of the Whig States in Mr. President, the drama is hastening to its denouethe present critical and perilous state of our public afment, and a new scene has opened in the Executive profairs. Whether the Senator from Maine has or has not test. Our difficulties are thickening and increasing upon expressed the views of his State, may be inferred from us, but I rejoice that the spirit of the country is also the recent manifestations of the opinions of the people of rising, and that of the Senate is strong, elastic, and unaPortland, the first city in it; and of Bangor the second, bated. I have understood that, in a conversation with the and the seat of the Government of Maine. As to my late King of Spain, the Count de Survilliers, the Presifriend from Ohio, the neighboring State to that in which dent stated to the brother of Napoleon, that he had made I reside, my word upon it, that it will be demonstrated the Emperor of France his model. There is one incihereafter in due time, that he has truly represented the dent in the life of the illustrious chief of the French emwishes of the people of Ohio. pire, that I hope the President does not mean to attempt

But, sir, the precepts of the President would be enti-Ito imitate: I trust that our First Consul has no design to

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disperse the Council of Five Hundred, or of Forty-eight, by the bayonet. I have been told that, very lately, the clerks in the several departments have been required to renew their official oaths. For what purpose? I must, in candor, say, that I have as yet no serious apprehensions of a forcible dissolution of the Senate. The army and the navy, thank God, are sound and patriotic to the core. They will not allow themselves to be servile instruments of treason, usurpation, and the overthrow of civil liberty, if any such designs now exist. And if the President marches at the head of either or both of his cabinets, to put down the Senate, I think our sergeant-at-arms, with his assistants, can repel, capture, and give a good account of the invading foe.

I second the motion of the Senator from New Jersey to print and refer the proceedings which he has presented. Mr. FORSYTH said, that, as great importance seemed to be attached to this proceeding, he should be glad to know the object of this convention of delegates, and the manner in which they were chosen by the people.

Mr. SOUTHARD repeated what he had before stated on the subject.

[APRIL 23, 1834.

The gentleman from Kentucky had understood that a certain expression had fallen from General Jackson, in a conversation with the brother of Napoleon, the ex-King of Spain; and, on this understanding, he had charged the President with a desire to disperse the legislature of the United States by force. Now, he put it to the gentleman from Kentucky, whether such an inference was just to the President of the United States.

Mr. PRESTON then made some observations which were only partially heard. He stated that the President had, in his message, stated the fact, that certain Senators had voted otherwise than they had been instructed. Why, in this canvass of Senatorial motives, had he spread on the Executive Journal the facts of these instructions, and that the Senators had not complied with them? Was it all surplusage? Was it not intended to warrant any inference? If it was intended that no inference should be drawn from the facts, why was so useless, so ridiculous a course pursued, as to place the facts in the message? It reminded him of the situation of a certain ridiculous person in a farce, who put to every one the question،، Have you ten pence about you? I only ask for information."

Mr. FORSYTH explained. He did not say that no inference was to be drawn. The President had been charged with directly stating that the Senators had not done their duty. To that he had replied; certainly, the President must have intended that inference should be drawn from his statement of facts.

Mr. FORSYTH resumed. He understood the thing. It appeared that, in the State of New Jersey, there were several meetings of persons holding particular opinions on the subject of the late measure of the Executive. These persons had appointed delegates to meet in a convention, and here were the proceedings. And we were gravely told by the gentleman from Kentucky, that this was the true and obligatory sense of the people, to oper- Mr. PRESTON resumed. Certainly; and he intended ate on their representatives in Congress, any thing in the that it should be inferred that the representatives of pubproceedings of the legislature of the State to the contra-lic opinion in those States had not performed their duty. ry notwithstanding. He put it to the gentleman from Every body was able to comprehend it. But the gentleKentucky to say, if he could, that this was a convention man from Georgia had laid it down that the electors alone representing a majority of the people of New Jersey. had a right to instruct, and that the legislature was reThere had been no expression of the sense of the people through the ballot box; it was the opinion of one side, an opinion expressed merely for political and party effect; and they who represent the State in Congress are required to take this expression for their guide. Now, all this was merely matter of opinion. He wished to be informed who ought to instruct the Senators of the State in Congress, but they who elected them. This question he put to those who believed that the Senators were bound to obey their instructions. The correct principle was, that they who elect the legislature have a right to control that legislature; and that the legislature who elect the Senators have a right to instruct them. The Senators are to obey the legislature, and the legislature is responsible to the people. The people, in this instance, ought to have directed their instructions to the legislature, to undo what they had previously done.

sponsible only to the people. Now, he might pause here to compare the doctrines inferrible from the message, with certain other proceedings respecting legislatures. This proclamation was intended against the Senate. They had had one previously against the bank, in which the President took all the responsibility. There had been another proclamation, never to be forgotten, in which it was announced that the people of a sovereign State ought not to obey the Legislature of that State, but were bound to render obedience to him; and where the Legislature had passed a law by a majority of two-thirds, he threatened the people with fire and sword, if they did not disobey that law. But now it suits his purpose to appeal to the Legislature against the people.

Mr. P. then went into an argument on the powers inherent in the Senate, as trustees appointed by the Legis latures, who were themselves only trustees of the people; The gentleman from Kentucky had done injustice to contending that the Senate ought to look to the original the President of the United States. It was not alleged sources of their power, and not merely to the court by by the President that the Senators had not done their which they were appointed. The Senate, therefore, are duty; but he had merely given the facts concerning the bound to look to the people of the States, and not to the proceedings of the legislatures of New Jersey and Maine. Legislatures. The people had a right to meet in convenAs to the instructions to the President, where did the tions, and, instead of instructing their representatives, gentleman from Kentucky find them? We have had me- might desire them to come home. This they could do. morials in abundance on both sides, but only a portion of If he were told he must give up his sentiments in obethe people have as yet spoken. A great part of the dience to instructions, he could never consent to do it, people have not yet said any thing. The President but he would admit the power of the people to abridge would be at a loss to find any instructions in these con- his term of service. Mr. P. then went on to deny that flicting memorials. If he were to come here to ascertain the power of instruction was necessarily implied by the what proportion of the people have spoken, how many power of election, and asked if the college of electors, would he find? Of the twelve millions of the American after performing their duty in electing the President, people, how many have spoken? Gentlemen made a could meet together and instruct him as to the manner in great mistake. They thought there were great chan- which he should discharge the duties of his office. ges, because there were noisy, riotous meetings, factious considered that the election of Senators by the Legislaassemblages, amounting almost to treason. In great tures was a function precisely similar, just as definite and cities, masses of individuals were easily assembled, and unextended a power. They were appointed to elect were excited by trifling causes. Let gentlemen wait a Senators, just as electors were chosen to make a Presilittle, and they would see the real opinion of the people. Ident.

He

APRIL 23, 1834.]

New Jersey Memorials.

[SENATE.

He believed that the Senators do their duty when they should meet here at the commencement of another sesobey the State, and not the Legislature of the State. it sion, there would no longer be any disposition to dishad been said that we calculate too warmly on what is go-pute the fact.

ing on throughout the country. It might be so. The Mr. FORSYTH, in reply to Mr. PRESTON, said he Senate had appealed to the people, and they are the ar- had spoken of the doctrine of instruction as settled in Virbiters between the departments of the Government.ginia, which in that State, according to theory and pracWhen their decision shall come, the Senate must obey, tice, is, that the people of the United States shall instruct but that decision must come in a proper form: but he be- their Representatives in Congress, and that the Legislalieved that their decision would sustain the Senate. Noth-tures of the States shall instruct their Senators. The Sening but the most unequivocal testimony could convince ators were elected by the Legislature alone, and the peohim that the people can, will, or dare submit to the usur-ple had no means of interfering but by acting on the Lepations of the Executive. gislature. Therefore, if the Legislature instructs their He believed that a great change was going on, and that Senators, it is supposed that they have the opinions of the the permanence of their Government was involved in the majority by whom they are elected. Who was he to issue, and he believed that it would be preserved. If, obey! Why, the constitution of his State was as binding however, the opinions of the gentleman from Georgia on him as on the Legislature who elected him; and he was could prevail, we should be without hope. The change first to obey that. But where the right of instruction is was going on. "Clamor!" says the gentleman from conceded, he must obey those who elected him. The Georgia,interested clamors, faction, almost treason!" Senators from New Jersey both contended that the will says the gentleman from Georgia. All the movements of of the people of New Jersey is against their Legislathe people against the encroachments of power have been ture. Now, said he, I go for the converse of the propdenounced as factious. The people a faction! The cries osition, for they were elected by a majority of the peoof an injured, outraged, suffering, distressed people, fac-ple, and until another election was had, it could not tious! The prayers and supplications and remonstran-be known that they had lost the favor of the people. ces of a people, driven, pressed to ruin, for relief for The Senator from South Carolina had said, that an aptheir wives and children, factious! The tempest which peal was made to the people, and that they would deis now agitating the whole of our sea-coast, arising mere- cide it against the administration. When that decision ly from faction! How does faction act? In riotous move- was made, he would submit to it, whatever it might be. ments, and in driving freemen from the polls? These But something, he must observe, was to be gained by mamay be indications of faction. But this was the first time king these assertions beforehand, that public opinion was he had heard that, when the people take their case into in such a way. It was forestalling public opinion, and their own hands, and say that their complaints shall be he was not willing to let it pass without giving what were heard, this is faction. Where could the gentleman from his sentiments as to public opinion.

Georgia find the facts to justify the assertion that the He appealed to the State of Pennsylvania, from which conduct of the people was "almost treason?" What is the gentleman from Massachusetts had just arrived. What treason? Can the people be guilty of treason? Is it trea- was the opinion of a majority of the people of that State? At least nineson to check the encroachments of executive power, and There was hardly but one opinion there. to say that the balance of power shall be restored? Have tenths of its population were against the Bank of the not the people a right to say this? It may be that a Pres- United States, which was the cause of all the evil. If the ident, strong in his temper, and uniting with him Con- gentleman found fault with him for speaking of factious gress in one branch, might come to the Senate and inflict proceedings in the streets of a neighboring city, he would chastisement upon it, require you to kiss the rod, and answer, that he did not refer to any expressions of opinthen to hang it up in your hall, as a perpetual memento ion by peaceable, orderly citizens, nor of the acts of any of your offence. The President may assail us through a honorable men, but of brawling crowds, profaning even thousand channels, and charge us with being bought and the Sabbath day, for the sake of abusing the President of sold, but however we may be disposed to bear our backs the United States. When the people of the United to the lash, shall it be said that the people shall not give States meant to express their disapprobation of the Prestheir sentiments to the tempest and the whirlwind, to ident, they would not profane the Sabbath for that purstrike where it will? The people of the United States pose. The people do not believe that the President always proceed according to law. They had been exci-has seized on the public treasure. That question is yet ted by attacks on the Senate; and he should be glad to see to be tried before them. I deny that he has a doit of it them express their opinions; but he desired to see them in his possession. expressed only through the legitimate and ordinary chanMr. CHAMBERS said, the honorable Senator from nels. He was convinced that the people were going on. Georgia has, at last, found a habitation and a home for They will sustain the New Jersey Senators, and all those his "faction"-his "something, not treason, but just who are doing their duty by sustaining the constitution. like treason;" he has located the scene in my State, and The Senator alludes to The public had recorded their verdict of condemnation the actors are my constituents. against the President. The flame had first caught in the proceedings of the citizens of Baltimore, on Sunday cities, and had widened and deepened there, and the coun- last. Sir, amongst the gentlemen in that assemblage, try would respond to it. The first blow was aimed at were many of my earliest and most esteemed friends, the prosperity of cities, and the cities were the first to many whose friendship and respect any man may be proud speak: but he believed that the day was advancing, when to boast; many whose character, whether for intellectual, the whole country would rise and speak in a voice which moral, or even religious attainment, will compare with an would make itself heard. equal number in any community; men whowould spurn the One word only he wished to say concerning the reso-imputation of riotous, factious, almost treasonable conduct. lutions. The convention purports to represent the opin[Mr. FORSYTH disclaimed having applied the term “alions of the people of New Jersey. At the head of this most treason" to that meeting. convention was a gentleman who had been a Jackson Mr. CHAMBERS said, Where does the Senator find elector. From this fact, that there was a man from treason? I ask for the persons and the occasion intended among the friends of General Jackson taking part against by the remark.

his conduct, it was clear that changes were going on; and Mr. FORSYTH here made some explanation, which was these changes are going on and multiplying by thousands not distinctly heard, and concluded by reading a parawhile we are discussing. He trusted that, when they graph from a Baltimore newspaper.]

VOL. X.-91

SENATE.]

New Jersey Memorials.

[APRIL 23, 1834.

sons to similar resistance. It is my deep conviction that such is to be the issue. The people may be deluded, but they are pure in purpose; they are awakening to a true conception of their danger. Thus aroused, they will inform themselves, and understanding, they will, with resistless might, drive out those faithless agents who have betrayed their confidence.

Mr. CHAMBERs resumed. The Senator's treason, then, triarchs factious, rebellious, treasonable. Those which has no existence but in his imagination. Sir, I tell the were held on Sunday were thought impious, and the of Senator he is as wide of the true character of the gentle- fence against the Deity of Heaven was certainly not the men of Baltimore, when he describes them as riotous and less aggravated because it was in union with an offence factious, and violators of the Sabbath, as he would be against an idol scarcely less reverenced by those who were he to call them traitors. I had the best means of worshipped him. Sir, for one, I trust and hope we shall ascertaining who composed the "factious crowd" of the long witness such rebellion; I trust and hope that the same Senator. I was also hurrying on to resist the aggression treason which led our patriot sires to bold and successful upon this body, to take my seat on this floor, and receive resistance against lawless usurpation, will animate their my portion of the lecture administered to the Senate of the United States by Executive majesty, in this novel thing called a "protest." Having been in the city in a few minutes after the scene which the Senator describes as factious, riotous, and not treasonable, I can tell him that I found there some of those who had been leaders, ardent and influential leaders, in the cause of his hero; some who had been loud in his praise, who had enlisted In a Government where the laws themselves do not their affections and their passions, whose judgments were open to the people an avenue by which they can arrive at scarcely within the reach of fact or argument, but upon a desired result of correction, there must, in such a case, whom the events of the last few weeks, and more espe- be revolution and bloodshed. The people cannot, in cially, the events of the last few days, have not produced whatever numbers, speak in terms which, by the regular the most wholesome influence. The scales of error have action of the laws, will peaceably control or remove the fallen from their eyes; they see, and they deplore, the offending rulers. The emperor or the king is not periodrashness and the danger of confiding power to hands not ically elevated to the throne by the suffrages of the great only incompetent, but dangerous. They see, and they body of the people, and no resort is had to their will to deplore, that artful and wicked men are carrying out their determine his continuance. Here we are yet happily in desperate and destructive purposes, under the sanction possession of legal means to dethrone our rulers peaceably of that popularity which they have assisted to build up and effectually. The ballot-box is a weapon not less effifor him who is the cloak and the shield to this irresponsi- cient in the United States than the sword and the bayonet ble power behind the throne. in Europe. This will restrain our people in the most vioSir, I wish the Senator from Georgia could have had lent excitement. It has restrained them when nothing the same opportunity to witness the spirit that pervaded beside could have prevented violence. The just sense of the citizens of Baltimore. He would have been remind-outrage and injury inflicted upon the purity of our institued of the best days of the republic. He would have tions and the sanctity of our laws, the high claims to arbiheard the pure and unadulterated sentiments of patriot-trary power, and the wide-spread, withering ruin which ism, the most anxious and deep-toned solicitude for the has been effected in execution of these pretensions, would sacred institutions of our country-the most anxious ap- have driven any other people to revolution, to violence prehensions for the free republican principles of our glo- and forcible resistance, and thousands of American patriots rious constitution-the most trembling alarm at the threat- would this day be in arms to rescue the constitution and ened blow to the majesty of the laws. He would have the laws, but for the conviction that a bloodless battle and found these feelings deeply agitating the bosoms of men certain victory may be gained by the surer, safer means of who have most stake in society, who have long lived in elections. the community which they honor, respected and beloved I say, then, to all who desire to live and die in the freefor their intelligence, and their social, domestic, and per-dom which the peril and blood of our ancestors have pursonal virtues; and he would have found, too, that so per- chased; who mean to resist the approach of despotism at vading and intense was this feeling, that its expression was that point at which alone it can be resisted-its beginnot restrained even on the Sabbath, in a community, and ning-you who will have your public agents to adminisby those where and by whom the sanctity of that day is ter their trusts according to the laws you have prescribed regarded with as much holy reverence as by any commu- for their conduct; who do not, in short, design to bave nity. It requires more self-control than I possess, to sit all power concentrated in one man-to all such I would quietly in my chair, and hear imputed to such men the say, Admonish your confiding neighbor of the existing character given by the Senator from Georgia. danger; spread before his prejudiced mind the evident But, sir, it is the language which has always been ap- tokens of the slow poison which his political doctrine is plied by those who have usurped power, and ever will infusing into the system; urge him to throw aside the be. The bold and acknowledged conqueror, who open-shackles of party, and to look beyond the interests of one ly seizes upon the Government and claims to control its man, or even one party, and regard the great interests of whole action, breathes slaughter and extermination to all the nation-its fundamental principles of government, who dare resist his claims, and executes his threat upon its past history and practice, the pure and simple docthe pretext of subduing treason and rebellion, and his trines of former republican Presidents, of our Washingbayonets are the correctives for faction and treason. He ton, our Jefferson, our Madison; their acknowledged obwho, by the slow but more fatal process of corruption ligation to the laws made by the legitimate organs of the and gradual approach to despotism, would subdue resist- people and the States; their cautious abstinence from the ance from freemen, will make the creatures of his pow-exercise of any questionable power; their anxious regard er the executioners of his will. He who dares sound the and respect for the authority of Congress; and their dealarm, must be denounced as an enemy to God and man.votion to the sacred restraining principles which the conThe voice of freedom, the manly remonstrance of patri-stitution has declared shall mark the limit of their auotism, will be sedition, riot, faction-now "almost," thority. Look to the healthful action of the system under and anon "altogether," treason. Yes, sir, the noble, such a course of wise administration; look to the growth the glorious resistance of our gallant ancestors, in 1776, and prosperity of the country; the wealth and abundance was "faction"-was "treason." King George III, and which blessed us; the peace, happiness, and contentment his secretaries, and those who claimed for him the right to which abounded in our borders; the march of intellect possess and control the revenues of his American colo- and science. And then, when filled with this contemplanies, thought the assemblages of our revolutionary pa- tion, point him to the gloomy, dreary prospect which no

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