University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.
THE PATRIOT'S STORY.

“As I design relating only my political history,”
said Mr. Smash, “I shall say nothing
of my parentage, birth, or youth, except
that the first was highly respectable, as you
may perceive by the name, (I am of the
Smashes, sir, of Virginia,) that my birth happened
in one of the most patriotic counties of
the Ancient Dominion, and that my youth was,
as I may say, one long dream of public virtue.
I longed to serve my country, and approve
myself the worthiest of her sons—a
passion that grew with my growth, until, in
early manhood, it had banished every other
from my bosom. The love of pelf and of
pleasure, nay, even the love of woman, I

threw aside and forgot, feeding my appetites
upon aspirations after renown, and wedding
my heart to the glories of my native
land. Happy, thought I, is he who can serve
his country, enjoying, in life, the digito monstrari
of a nation's approbation, in death, the
dulce et decorum of a nation's gratitude, carved
in immortal letters on his tomb.

“The great object of my wishes was, at
last, effected—I stumped through my district
and my fellow citizens sent me to Congress!

“Judge the delight with which I first trod
that glorious hall, thronged with the representatives
of a free people, each looking a
Cato or Aristides, and munching his tobacco
with the air of a ruler of the world. I threw
myself upon my chair, mounted my legs upon
my desk, took my quid of best James-River,
and enjoyed for a while the rapture and dignity
of my new situation. But this indulgence
did not last long: I remembered I was
there to serve my country—to perform the
great duties of a representative—which service
and duties I resolved to enter upon without
further loss of time. I began my patriotic
labours forthwith.

“The first thing I did was to make a
speech; and, as the quantity and quality

of public spirit in the breast of a legislator
can only be shown by the length of his harangue,
I made my maiden effort as long as
the state of my health (which was weak from
hard work on the stump and at barbecues
during the canvass,) permitted. Having once
got the floor—which was no easy matter,
there being two or three hundred members
who were as ripe for proving their patriotism
as I,—I launched into a discourse, in which I
handled things both in general and particular,
and gave the whole history of Greece and
Rome. As to the subject then before the
house, I do not remember what it was—or
rather I never knew it; nor, indeed, was that
a matter of any consequence, the last week
of the session being the proper time to speak
to the point. I spoke for seven days, and
then concluded, my strength giving way sooner
than I expected. My speech was, nevertheless,
of very good length, and, I believe,
my constituents were satisfied. Indeed, upon
consideration, I think they had reason to
be; for my oration furnished matter (excluding
all other, saving a few editorial scraps
now and then) to The Watch-Tower of Freedom,
the weekly paper of my district, week
after week, during the whole winter; in fact,
the printing of it occupied the Watch-Tower
of Freedom longer than I the hall of Liberty;
and, for aught I can tell, they may not have
finished it yet.

“This speech made a great sensation. The
thrilling eloquence, by which it was said to
be characterized, the fiery fervour, the scorching
sarcasm, the annihilating invective, the
bursts of sublimity and pathos, the keen wit,
the elegant humour, the classic style, the poetic
adornment, added to the graceful gesture,
the magnificent voice, the eye of fire, and
other congressional qualities which it enabled
me to develop, took the house by storm;
and I was at once pronounced a legislator of
the first grade—a master and ruling spirit—
a sun-born son of genius—a giant of intellect—
a Titan of oratory—in short, sir, a great man.
Compliments and congratulations fell upon
me like the leaves of November; the Speaker
shook me by the hand, the President invited me
to supper, and members of all parties sought
my acquaintance. In a word, I was raised to
the pinnacle of favour, and admitted to be
one of the first men in Congress.

“Having made my speech, I felt that I
had accomplished one of the great objects
for which I had been sent to the legislature.

And thus, a chief duty being performed,
and my mind released from the load of responsibility
that oppresses the unspoken
member, I was able to direct my energies to
other objects yet to be accomplished, and to
reflect what course it became me to take, as
a man of principle and true American patriotism,
in relation to my future career.

“And now I felt, even more strongly than
before, how deep and fervid was the flame
with which I burned to do my country
service; and during the two weeks which I
lay on my back, recovering from the toil of
my oration, I devoted every moment to the
consideration of the evils under which the
country was labouring, and the means of removing
them. In a word, I devised and digested
a plan of reform, which I resolved to
bring before Congress as soon as possible;
and, that my constituents might perceive I
was entering upon the work in earnest, and
without any partial views or inclinings, I determined
to begin at home—that is, in Congress
itself—and so attack abuses at the
fountain-head.

“Observing that two or three different
members, while I lay sick, had occupied the
house with uncommonly long speeches, I began

to reflect what would be the consequence,
were all to claim the privilege of speaking
seven days on a stretch, as I had done myself.
I was shocked to discover, that, if only
two hundred should insist upon speaking that
length of time, and only once each, it would
require a session of three years and ten
months to enable them to get through, without
counting the time required for business.

“Struck with this discovery, I immediately
brought a proposition before the house to
amend its regulations so far as to secure attention
to the proper business of the nation.
The bill which I desired to introduce, provided
that no member should be allowed,
under any circumstances, (except while making
his maiden speech,) to speak longer upon
any business before the house, than half an
hour at a time.

“The reader who does not trouble himself
about journals of Congress, and who skips the
reports of debates in his newspaper, will be
surprised to hear that this motion, which I
considered the most patriotic I could make,
since it deprived me of the right of delivering
ten other speeches, which I at first meditated,
was met by angry remonstrance and the
fiercest opposition. Two hundred honourable

members started upon their feet, and
charged me with an attack upon their privileges,
a design to subvert the liberty of
speech. `What did they come there for?'
they asked: `to maintain the rights of their
constituents, and defend their own.' `Was
that,' they cried, `the temple of Liberty, the
hall of Freedom, and were members to be
gagged at the very altar? If the honourable
member brought padlocks for their lips, why
not fetters for their limbs, whips for their
backs, daggers for their throats? They
could tell me, and they could tell Mr. Speaker
—they could tell the world, which surveyed
their proceedings—that the representatives
of American freemen were themselves freemen,
who would resist the approaches of the
enemy of liberty to the last, and die in the
breach, or, as some of them said, `in the
ditch,' (which is no proper place for a gentleman's
death-bed,) under the ruins of the
constitution.

“In short, there was a deal of eloquent
speeches made, and a torrent of indignation
poured upon my proposition, and on me. It
was in vain that I called the attention of
members to the discovery I had made, the
surprising fact, that, if we should all speak as

long as we could, and attend to business besides,
the session must be necessarily prolonged
through a term of four years; which
was just twice as long as we had a right to
sit, and in direct contravention of the obligation
imposed on Congress to hold four different
sessions within that period. I was answered,
`the right of speech was sacred, and
should not be invaded.' I appealed to their
good-sense, and the Speaker called me to
order; I addressed myself to their reason,
and a member asked me, `if I meant to insult
the house?' while another—a man whom
I before was disposed to regard as of quite a
patriotic turn, though born so far north as
Pennsylvania—told me, `if I had come to
that house with reason in my pocket, I had
brought my wares to the wrong market.'

“In truth, my proposition was a bomb-shell,
(I use the Congressional figure, as
striking for its expressiveness as it is venerable
for its age,) cast upon the floor at the feet
of members. It produced a commotion even
in the galleries; the reporters, its only friends,
received it with frenzies of approbation, so
that the Sergeant-at-Arms was ordered to
expel them: and this is the reason why there

has never been a full and satisfactory report
of that debate in the newspapers.

“The motion was lost by a tremendous
majority, no one voting in its favour except
myself and a member from Down East, who
was tongue-tied, and therefore hated long
speeches. It caused the members pretty
generally to regard me with coolness and ill-will;
and, what afflicted me greatly, the
Southern members seemed to be the most
displeased of all. Nevertheless, I had taken
my stand, and opposition only determined
me the more strongly to devote myself to
the cause of my country. I said to myself,
`if I fail in my efforts, if I sacrifice myself on
the altar of the republic, I shall be remembered
as the friend of freedom, and placed
among the brightest of its martyrs.' I determined
to persevere in the path pointed out
by reason and patriotism together; and I resolved,
in order to be virtuous on the largest
scale, to tear all sectional feelings from my
bosom, to forget that Virginia lay on one
side of Mason and Dixon's line and Massachusetts
on the other, and remember only,
as Washington had done before me, that I
was an American.

“My second proposition, being rather of

a theoretic than practical complexion, prospective
and contingent, at least, as to its effects
on the national purse, but immediate,
certain, and highly advantageous as to its
effects on the national character, I was of
opinion would be received with favour and
applause by all. It was a measure designed
to remove from our government a stain
charged to attach to all republics, and which,
there was good reason to suppose, had a
very palpable existence on the fair face of
our own. I desired to introduce a bill in
which it was resolved, preambulatorily,
(though there is no such word in Walker,)
`that the nation was, of right ought to be, and
through time would be, grateful to all its
citizens who contributed to its glory and
weal,' and provided, sectionally, (which is as
new a word as the other,) `that its gratitude
should be extended not only to those who
lost legs and arms in its service, but to all
who, by valuable discoveries and improvements
in art and science, by the foundation
of philanthropic institutions, the dissemination
of moral principles, and the production
of works of genius, might be pronounced the
benefactors of their country.' On such
worthies of the republic I proposed we
should bestow pensions, or grants of land,
together with such honours as it consisted
with the character of our institutions to
allow; and I advised, moreover, that we
should begin the work of gratitude by erecting,
without a moment's delay, the divers
tombs and monuments which Congress had
long since voted to deceased heroes of the
Revolution, without voting appropriations to
build them.

“This proposition, I am grieved to say,
produced a hubbub full as great as the other,
and caused a still more violent outcry against
myself. `What!' cried an honourable member
from the neighbourhood of the Rocky
Mountains, `waste the people's money! my
constituents' money? Mr. Speaker, if that
ar'nt flat treason, I don't know what ar'. I
say, if there ar' to be any pensions for improvements,
rat all the arts and sciences, and
call 'em improvements on land, and I stick in
a claim for my constituents. But I go ag'in
the whole measure. I reckon the honourable
feller—that is, the honourable gentleman
from Virginnee—thinks money grows among
us, out in the West, like deer skins and dirt;
but it don't.' `Extravagance! wilful, criminal,
shocking, extravagance!' cried others by

hundreds. The idea of wasting the people's
money seemed to strike all with horror; some
were petrified, many aghast; and one member,
rising up, was so overcome with dismay
that he could not speak a word, but looking
at the speaker, and then at me, and then at
the speaker again, he tapped his finger
against his forehead three times, and then
sat down. What he meant, if he meant any
thing, I did not then know; but I have since
had an idea, he thought I had lost my senses.
I endeavoured to satisfy the honourable members
that a few thousand dollars taken annually
from an exchequer rolling over with
a surplus of twenty or thirty millions a year,
would not affect the credit of the government,
nor reduce a single citizen to bankruptcy;
that the American people were not, as they
seemed to think them, a nation of heartless
niggards and misers; that we, the representatives
of the only truly popular government
in the world, owed it to mankind and ourselves,
to the interests of our country and
the institutions we affected to prize, to show
our fellow creatures we knew how to appreciate
and reward the merit of our citizens,
and to reward them at least as wisely and
generously as kings and princes were wont
to reward their deserving subjects. I say, I
endeavoured to satisfy honourable members
on these points, and others that occurred to
me; but I endeavoured in vain. Honourable
members insisted that the people's money
was sacred—that their constituents were
misers and niggards—and that it was our
duty, as far as the world and mankind were
concerned, to let them take care of themselves,
we, the representatives of the United
States, taking care of their money. Nay,
and one fellow (as I am not now in Congress,
I am not obliged to call him `gentleman,')
got up and insinuated, `that, as every body
could see I was a patriot, I was getting up
the measure with a view to my own future
benefit.'

“As a Virginian and a gentleman, I could
not stand so gross an insult; I therefore pronounced
the man a scoundrel, and called the
Speaker to bear witness I should blow his
brains out, the moment the house adjourned.
As it began to be a serious matter, the Speaker
called us to order; the insulter thereupon
assured the house he meant nothing personal
in the remark; and I, in consequence, acknowledging
the same in relation to my threat, the
matter blew over without a fight; which was

agreeable to me, having my hands so full of
the nation's business. The quarrel was settled;
and so was my patriotic proposition.
There were but ten men sufficiently alive to
the honour and interests of their country to
vote for it. No one, indeed, objected to the
preamble, namely, that the nation was, ought
to be, and would be, grateful to all its good
citizens that deserved gratitude; and that part
of the bill passed nem. con.; but the paying
sections, which were the gist of the affair,
went by the board. And so it was resolved
that the republic of America should be as ungrateful
as those of Greece and Rome of
yore, and ten times more so.

“My next attempt to arouse my colleagues
to a sense of their duty was equally unfortunate.
Perceiving that our vast frontiers, both
inland and maritime, east, west, north, and
south, lay as open and unprotected as the
common-lands of a village, so that it would
be easy, at any moment, for a curious person,
or persons, of covetous propensities, to steal
into the land, and help themselves to a few
towns and cities, together with as many of
the militia as they could catch, I thought it
my duty to bring the matter before Congress;
and I introduced it accordingly, accompanied

by a bill which I asked to have referred to a
special committee. By this bill it was provided
that the standing army of the United
States should be increased so far as to allow
to each fortress on the frontier a garrison to
consist of one private and one non-commissioned
officer, both well armed.

“The reading of this bill was like throwing
two bomb-shells among the members. Convulsions
of horror and wrath seized instantly
upon all. `Increase the standing army!'
they cried; `put our liberties in the keeping of
an armed soldiery! A conspiracy, rank conspiracy!
a conspiracy against our freedom!'

“In short, there never was such an uproar
in the House before or since; and I was myself
almost frighted at the terror I had created.
Nothing was seen in my proposal but
a design, as audacious in conception as it
must prove diabolical in effect, to reduce the
nation to bondage, to batter down the Capitol
with artillery, and bring the bayonets of
the myrmidons of power against the throats
of honourable members where they stood.
But the terror of honourable members was
equalled by their heroism; and again, as in
a previous instance, they declared, that, come
the usurper and despot when he would, as

for them, let others do as they might, they
would oppose him face to face, foot to foot,
hand to hand, perish in their chains, like the
Roman senators under the swords of the
savage Brennus, fall with decent dignity like
Julius Cæsar, or, snatching up arms, strike a
last blow for freedom, and die—as before—
`in a ditch.'

“There never was such an uproar, as I
said before; and every word I pronounced, in
the effort to allay it, only made matters worse.
An honourable member boasting that our
frontiers required no guards beyond `our gallant
and glorious militia,' I had the effrontery
(as it was called,) to tell him that, with all
my respect for the militia, I thought they
were a very uncertain set of personages; at
which insult to the yeomanry of America, he
—the aforesaid honourable member—fell into
a fit, and was carried off in a dangerous condition
to his lodgings. Nay, this expression
of mine leading to a debate, in which, as is
usual on such occasions, remarks were made
on all such subjects connected and unconnected
with the question before the House, I had
the misfortune to give offence by two other
declarations, which a sense of honesty called
on me to make—namely, first, that the

Hartford-Conventionists were not all traitors,
and, secondly, (but this I offered rather as an
opinion than a positive declaration,) that foreigners
of six-months residence in the country
were not citizens. The first assertion,
though it caused faint murmurs of approbation
from some Yankee members, was met
by others with scornful cries of `Eccentricity!'
and the Speaker decided that it was
out of order. The second produced a furious
and universal explosion, and a hundred voices,
at least, charged me with a design to revive
those accursed inventions of tyranny and the
devil, the Alien and Sedition laws.—In fine,
my bill went to the tomb of the Capulets;
and it was the general opinion, I would soon
follow it.

“That evening, I was waited upon by the
delegation of the state I represented, who,
after reproaching me, in a formal manner, for
deserting (so they called it,) the principles of
the South, assumed a more friendly tone, and
remonstrated affectionately against the novel
and dangerous course I was taking, assuring
me `there was no use in being so honest.'
They declared I had entered Congress with
the finest prospects in the world, but that I
was defeating them.

“Gentlemen,” said I, with dignity, “I came
here, not to exalt myself, but to serve my
country.”

“You did!” said they, and all looked astonished.—“Your
constituents, you mean, my
dear Mr. Smash,” said the eldest of the party,
giving me a serious look.

“Sir,” said I, “my constituents are my
country, my state, and the good people of my
district; to all of whom I owe allegiance, but
to the first in the highest degree. When I
can serve the people of my district, without
striking at the interests of the state, I will do
so; when I can serve the commonwealth,
without infringing the interests of the nation,
the commonwealth shall be served; when I
can serve my country, I must do so, and without
asking whether the interests of my state
or district suffer or not.”

“Heavens and earth!” cried the delegation,
“this is flat federalism!”

“No, gentlemen,” said I “it is patriotism.”

“Federalism! consolidation! aristocratical!
monarchical! anti-republican!”

“My gentlemen fell into a rage, but were
called to order by the Nestor of the delegation,
who took them aside, and having counselled
with them awhile returned, and grasping

my hand, said, with a friendly and sympathetic
countenance, while the others sat
nodding their heads ominously at one another,
and looking on with a doleful stare,—

“You are a young man, Mr. Smash, quite
a young man—a very promising talented
man, Mr. Smash; but young—young and inexperienced,
Mr. Smash. May rise to the
first honours in the land, Mr. Smash, if only
a little cautious, and prudent—a little prudent
Mr. Smash. Take my advice, Mr. Smash:
your health is infirm, you have a nervous
temperment, a great deal of enthusiasm,
Mr. Smash; you allow yourself to be excited,
and then, you know, a man says strange
things, and does strange things, Mr. Smash.
Now take my advice: keep your mind tranquil,
Mr. Smash; stay at home a few days,
and live low—very low, Mr. Smash; avoid
all speaking, don't engage in debate for a
whole month—not for a whole month, Mr.
Smash: do take care of yourself, or you don't
know what may happen, Mr. Smash. The
brain, Mr. Smash, the brain is a very tender
and delicate organ—a very, very tender organ,
Mr. Smash.”

“I smiled at the old gentleman's fears, assured
him I found myself in uncommon

health, and the delegation left me. I saw
they were displeased at the freedom and boldness
of my course; but, as my conscience and
common-sense told me I was right, I resolved
to persevere, and serve my country, whether
Congress would or not. I perceived in them
a strong example of the effect of sectional
and party feeling in warping the minds of
honourable men from the path of duty; and I
resolved the more firmly that my spirit should
hold fast to its integrity.