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I cannot make the promise which the gentleman who has just taken
his seat (Mr. Everett) made at the outset of his address, but I will make
a promise of a different nature, and one which I trust it will be in my
power to perform—I shall not say with more good faith than the gentleman
from Massachusetts, but more to the letter—ay, sir, and more to the
spirit too. I shall not, as the gentleman said he would do, act in mere
self-defence. I shall carry the war into Africa. Delenda est Carthago!
I shall not be content with merely parrying; no, sir, if I can, so help me
God, I will thrust also, because my right arm is nerved by the cause of

the people and of my country. I listened to the gentleman with pleasure—I
mean to the general course of his remarks, with a single exception,
and to that part of his speech I listened with the utmost loathing and
disgust. But disgust is too feeble a term. I heard him with horror introduce
the case of the Queen of France[1] —and in answer to what? To
a handbill, a placard, an electioneering firebrand. And in the presence
of whom? Of those who never ought to be present in a theatre where
men contend for victory and empire. Sir, they have no more business
there than they have in a field of battle of another sort. Women, indeed,
are wanted in the camp; but women of a very different description.
What maiden, nay, what matron, could hear the gentleman without covering
her face with her hands, and rushing out of the House? But for some
of the remarks of the gentleman from Massachusetts, in allusion to newspaper
publications, I should have begun in at least as low a key and as
temperate a mood as he did. To that key I will now pitch my voice.

I have been absent from the House for several days. I requested my
colleague (Mr. Alexander) to state the cause of that absence, which he
did. Yet even this could not be reported correctly. As this may be the
last act of public duty which I shall be able to perform, at least during
the present session, and as I have given up myself a sacrifice to its performance,
I respectfully ask the House to give their attention to what I
have now to say. I understand that during my absence I have been replied
to by various gentlemen (some of whom I have not the honor to
know by person) on different sides of the House in a manner which I do
not doubt was perfectly satisfactory, at least to the speakers themselves. I
certainly do not wish to disturb their self-complacency—de minimis non
curat—whether of persons or of things. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr.
Vance), with that blunt plainness and candor which I am told belong to
him, and which I admire in proportion as they are rare qualities in these
time-serving days—I like him the better for his surly honesty—I hope he
will take no offence at the term, for I can assure him that none is intended—charged
me in my absence (so my friends have informed me)
with what I believe he would not hesitate to have charged to my face, and
to which I have no objection, but I must except to the authority on which
he relied, for I protest against any gentleman's producing—as proof of
what I have at any time said—a newspaper, or anything purporting to be

a register of debates, unless I endorse it, and become answerable for it,
and more especially remarks drawn from the debates of another body,
which, in regard to me, are particularly unfaithful. I shall show to the
House not such matter as the gentleman from Massachusetts stirred, to the
offence of every moral sense, of every moral being. I do not pretend to
impose my standard of delicacy and propriety upon the gentleman, who
will no doubt measure by his own—de gustibus non est disputandum—
and it is not for me to interfere with the gentleman's tastes, whether in
literature, morals or religion. I shall refer to a matter of recent notoriety,
that will test the correctness of these reports. In the debate on the motion
of the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Hamilton), respecting a
picture of the battle of New Orleans, I did state, as distinctly as I could
articulate, that I had seen a monument erected to the memory of Andrè,
the British spy, in Westminster Abbey; that it was mutilated, the head of
General Washington, and arm (I think) of Andrè having been broken off,
the General's, most probably, by some Tory boy, from the neighboring
school of Westminster, and that of Andrè probably by some Whig boy in
retaliation. The name of Hamilton did not escape my lips. I thought,
indeed, of Hamilton, but it was of a living Hamilton—the gentleman
from South Carolina. But then parliamentary usage does not permit us
to speak of one another by name. Now, sir, I can show you, on the
same authority, which was relied on by the gentleman from Ohio—although
I acknowledge that the reports of that paper, so far at least as I am
concerned, have generally been more accurate this year than I have for a
long time known them to be before—that I am represented as saying that
the monuments in Westminster Abbey were mutilated in the same manner
as the tombs of Hamilton and Washington had been mutilated here. The
word tomb never escaped my lips on that occasion. This would have
been a palpable falsehood. Where is the tomb of Washington? There
is no such thing in this country, nor have I ever heard that a tomb has
been erected to the memory of Hamilton; but I suppose that the next
thing we shall hear will be, that the Quarterly, or some other impartial
Review, comes out and observes with a sneer, that as Roger Sherman said
the vote was the monument, so a gentleman from Virginia had by a speech
in Congress built up a tomb for Washington—a "constructive" tomb—
that existed nowhere but in his eccentric imagination. Sir, the tombs of
Washington and of Hamilton might stand anywhere in this country unenclosed;
they might, indeed, be liable to injury from the beasts of the field,
or from some invidious foreigner, but the hand of no American would
ever mutilate them. In the course of another debate, it seems that I rendered
to a gentleman from New York (Mr. Storrs) the homage which his
abilities deserved; and God forbid that the time should ever arrive when
I refuse to do justice to an adversary, when I shall disparage any merit
because it is found in the person of an opponent. When that time shall
arrive, may I never receive mercy from that fountain of it, to which alone
we all must look if we hope for forgiveness hereafter. I said that I would
not, like him, pronounce a palinodia, neither am I now going to pronounce
a palinodia in respect to the gentleman from New York. I shall not take
back one jot of praise bestowed upon him. With whatever views he introduced
it, the doctrine has always been mine—the strict subordination
of the military to the civil authority—Scripture is Scripture, by whom, or
for whatever purpose it may be quoted. I know nothing of the private
habits of that gentleman (Mr. Storrs), but I know that he has too much
good taste not to agree with me that time may be much better spent than
in reading the documents piled up here. Yet in the report of that debate,
I was represented as saying that, like the gentleman from New York,
I did not—what? pronounce a palinodia? No, not at all; but that, like
him, I did not read the documents. Sir, nobody reads the documents, for
this plain reason, that no man can read them, and, if he could, he could
hardly be worse employed. Sir, with a few exceptions, the documents
are printed that they may be printed, not that they may be read.

And now, sir, comes another charge about the miserable oppressed inhabitants
of Ireland. This subject has been mentioned to me by no gentleman
on the other side, except a member from Maryland, from the Eastern
Shore of Maryland (Mr. Kerr), who is not only by the courtesy of this
House, but in fact a gentleman. He, in Committee on the Rules and Orders
of the House, expressed to me his astonishment, that what I said on
that occasion could have been so much misunderstood and misrepresented,
that he heard me most distinctly. I now call on any member, who understood
me differently at the time, to rise in his place and say so. [Here Mr.
Randolph paused for a reply. None being given, and some friends having
said across the seats that no member could or would say that he had
understood Mr. Randolph as he had been misrepresented, Mr. Randolph
went on.] Without meaning to plead to; that is, without meaning to admit,
the jurisdiction of the press in the extent which it arrogates to itself,
I am perfectly sensible that no man is above public opinion. God forbid

that any man in this country shall ever be able to brave it. This is what
our great adversary has, with characteristic audacity, attempted to do,
sorely to his cost and that of his less bold compeer—now braving, now
truckling to it—bullying and backing out—all in character.[2] I regret that
any one should have supposed me capable of uttering such sentiments. So
far from it, I have been the steady, firm, constant and strenuous advocate
to the best of my poor ability of the oppressed people of Ireland. And
why? For the reason I stated on a former occasion: They fought our
battles, sir. I have known and esteemed many of them. Some of them
have been—they are dead—others are now living among my warmest
friends and best neighbors. In the course of a not uneventful life I have
seen many things, but I have yet to see that rara avis in terris (I have
seen a black swan) an Irish Tory. I have known Tories of every description;
yes, sir, some even in Virginia—even we had a few of them during
the Revolution, but too few to give us any trouble or alarm—but I never
have yet seen an Irish Tory, or the man who had seen one.

Sir, I don't read the newspapers—I don't read gentlemen's speeches,
and then come here to answer them. But I am extremely pleased, nay,
flattered, in the highest degree, at being told by my friends that the gentleman
from Ohio attributed in his speech so much to my efforts in bringing
the administration to its present lank and lean condition. The gentleman
could not have pleased me better—I only fear that with all his
bluntness and frankness the gentleman was not quite sincere, and was only
adorning me with fillets and garlands, like the priests of the sacrifice of
yore, previous to knocking me, and with me the party whom he strives to
wound through my sides, on the head. He was pleased to place me at the
head of what has been denominated the opposition party in this House;
but at its head, or that of any other party in this House, he will never find
me, for reasons which I could state, but which are wholly unnecessary.
Times are, indeed, changed with the gentleman and his friends when they
hold this language concerning me. But a little while ago, and the friends
of the administration, nay, the members of the administration, affected to
consider me as one of their firmest props. They could not, indeed, vote
for me—they were men too nice in their principles for that; but considering

the great benefit which they derived from my opposition, they could
not (except for the honor of the country) regret my reelection. Amiable
and excellent men! But they now sing to a very different gamut.

If any gentleman will bring against me any allegation, from a clean and
reputable source, I will do one of two things—I will either deny it, or admit
and defend it upon my views and principles. Sir, it seems I committed
a great offence in not voting for the admission of the new States into
the Union, and especially of Ohio. Yet, if the thing were to do over
again, I should act precisely in the same manner, and past experience
would teach me I was right. What were the new States? Vast deserts
of woods, inhabited by the Aborigines, to whom, if we come to the question
of right, they did of right belong; and it was a question whether
sound policy would dictate that we ought, by creating these States, to encourage
sparse settlements, and thereby to weaken our frontier. I thought
this was bad policy. Not that I am in favor of a very dense population.
I am against the rabble of your great cities, but I am equally opposed to
having a land without inhabitants. But, sir, I had other reasons—graviora
manent. Does the gentleman from Ohio, with all his laudable prejudice
and partiality towards his own State, think that I, as a Virginian,
feeling at least equal prejudice and partiality to my native land with that
which he feels for his State, would lend my sanction to an act on the part
of Virginia, which beggars every instance of fatuity and folly extant in
the history of nations? Why, sir, the Knight of La Mancha himself, or
poor old Lear in the play, never was guilty of a grosser act of fatuity than
was the State of Virginia when she committed that suicidal deed—the
surrendering of her immense territory beyond the river Ohio, upon the
express condition of excluding her own citizens from its benefit, when the
country (yielded for the common good of the confederacy) should come to
be settled. Yes, sir, it was an act of suicide—of political suicide—the
effects of which she has felt, and will continue to feel, so long as she has
any political existence at all. This was one of the most amiable and
philanthropic acts of legislation, which, however good in point of intention,
lead to the most disastrous and ruinous consequences. Can the gentleman
from Ohio conceive that I, a Virginian, could further this cut-throat
policy? I thought the Ohio a well defined natural boundary, and that we
ought not to weaken by extending our frontier. The late war verified my
foresight. Whom have I injured? The native savages and the trees, or
the States that have been drained of their population to fill out Ohio? I

offered no wrong to the people of Ohio, for there were then none to injure.
They have gone there, or have been born since. This was the
"head and front of my offending;" and if the gentleman has his apparatus
ready, I am prepared to undergo any form of execution which his
humanity will allow him to inflict, or which even his justice may award.

Smarting under the injurious election of a President against the will of
the people, by the votes of Louisiana and Missouri balancing those of
Pennsylvania and Virginia in this House, I spoke of ourselves as the only
people so overwise as to acquire provinces, not that we might govern them,
but that they might give law to us.

And, sir, I have always held, and shall forever hold it to be the height
of injustice (and of folly, too, on the part of the old States), that thirty or
forty thousand persons, who so long as they remained in Pennsylvania or
Virginia, were represented in the Senate, only as the rest of the Pennsylvanians
and Virginians should, by emigrating to one of the geographical
diagrams beyond the Ohio or the Mississippi, acquire, ipso facto, an equipollent
vote in the other House of Congress with the millions that they
left behind at home. In case of the old States, necessity gave this privilege
to Rhode Island, &c.; they were coordinate States—free, sovereign
and independent—and as such, ex vi termini, equal to the largest; but
here it was a gratuitous boon, at the expense of the original members of
the confederacy—not called for by justice or equity.

Sir, do not understand me as wishing to establish injurious or degrading
distinctions between the old and the new States, to the disadvantage
of these last. Some such already exist, which I would willingly do away.
No, sir, my objection was to the admission of such States (whether south
or north of the Ohio, east or west of the Mississippi) into the Union, and,
by consequence, to a full participation of power in the Senate with the
oldest and largest members of the confederacy, before they had acquired
a sufficient population that might entitle them to it, and before that population
had settled down into that degree of consistency and assimilation
which is necessary to the formation of a body politic. The rapidity with
which these new States fill up, would have retarded their full participation
in the power of their co-states but a very short time. And in that short
interval the safety of the other States (witness the vote of Missouri for
President) required such a precaution on their part. If I had been an
emigrant myself to one of these new States—and I have near and dear
connexions in some of them—I could not have murmured against the denial

to forty or fifty thousand new settlers (although I had been one of
them) of a voice in the Senate, potential as New York's, with a million
and a half of people.

The gentleman from Massachusetts cannot expect that I shall follow him
through his elaborate detail of the diplomatic expenses of this government
with which he came prepared. The House, however, will permit
me to observe that there was a hiatus—valde deflendus, I do not doubt, but
certainly not deeply lamented by me—a hiatus which embraces the whole
period of the administration of Mr. Jefferson. I am not going into the
question of these expenses; I will stir no such matter—demands which
have dogged the doors of the treasury so long, and so perseveringly, as
that they have been at length allowed, some from motives of policy, others
to get rid of importunate and sturdy beggars, although they were disallowed
under Mr. Jefferson's administration. But, sir, if every claim that
gets through this House, or is allowed by this government, after years of
importunity (some of them of thirty years standing), is for that reason considered
by the gentleman as a just claim, and fit to be drawn into precedent,
my notions of justice and of sound precedent differ greatly from his.
I, too, am as much opposed as he can be to what is truly called the prodigality
of parsimony. The gentleman thinks that the salaries of our foreign
ministers are too low, and therefore they must be eked out by these allowances
from the contingent fund—out of what is called the secret service
money. The gentleman is right as to the existence of such a fund. It
was appointed, and perhaps properly, for Washington was to be the first
charged with its disbursement. But our early Presidents always made it a
point of honor to return this fund untouched. They said to the nation,
you trusted me with your purse—I have had no occasion to use it—here
it is—count the money—there is as much by tale and as much by weight
as I received from you. But was it ever dreamed that such a fund was to
be put into the hands of a President of the United States, to furnish him
with the means of rewarding his favorites? No, sir; it was to pay those
waiters and chambermaids, and eaves-droppers, and parasites, and panders,
that the gentleman told us of on the other side of the water—and there it
might be all very right and proper—but not here, because we flatter ourselves
that the state of morals in this country is such as to save us from any
such necessity. No gentleman would understand him as speaking of the
sums which had been placed at the disposal of different Presidents, to a
vast amount, for the purpose of negotiating with the Barbary Powers, &c.,

but of that amount set apart and generally known as secret service money.
Mr. Jefferson used a small portion of this fund one year, the last of his
administration, to pay some expense in relation to Burr's conspiracy, which
was not allowed at the treasury.

With regard to the old billiard table, which is said to have cost some
fifty dollars, it is a subject that I should never have mentioned. I consider
that game as a healthy, manly, rational mode of exercise, when the
weather is such as to confine us within doors. I shall certainly never join
in any cant or clamor against it. I look upon it as a suitable piece of furniture
in the house of any gentleman who can afford it, where it is allowed
by law, as it is here and throughout the State of Maryland, as well as many
other States. It is a fit subject for taxation, but I should be sorry if we
were to proscribe that manly and innocent amusement.[3] If I have any
objection to that item, it is that such a pitiful article should have been
bought. I would have given him one that cost five hundred dollars, and
I would have voted the appropriation with cheerfulness. My objection to
such a charge is, that it is a shabby affair, and looks too much like a sneaking
attempt to propitiate, by the cheapness of the thing, popular displeasure.
The attempt to keep the thing out of sight only makes the matter
still worse. I do not charge the gentleman from North Carolina with any
such intention, but this seems to me to be too small a matter. I would
strike at higher game.

The gentleman from Massachusetts says that Franklin received a higher
compensation than Mr. Adams did, and other ministers of these times.
He did, sir, and what was the answer which that shrewd and sensible man
gave (for poor Richard had always an eye to the main chance) when his
accounts were scrutinized into, and his receipts were deemed exorbitant!
It was this, sir: "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn."
The very answer that I myself gave in Morrison's hotel, in Dublin, to a
squireen and an agent. For a description of these varieties of the plagues
of Ireland see Miss Edgeworth—delightful, ingenious, charming, sensible,
witty, inimitable, though not unimitated Miss Edgeworth. When
describing the misery of the South and West of Ireland, that I had lately
traveled over, I was asked, "And what would you do, pray, sir, for the
relief of Ireland?" with an air that none but Miss Edgeworth can describe,
and that no one that has not been in Ireland can conceive. My

reply was, "I would unmuzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn;" and I
had like to have got myself into a sad scrape by it, as any one who has
been in Ireland will readily understand. Yes, sir, I was disposed to give
to the houseless, naked, shivering, half-starved Irish laborer something
like a fair portion of the product of his toil, of the produce of the land on
which he breathes, but does not live; to put victuals into his stomach,
clothes upon his back, and something like a house over his head, instead
of the wretched pig-sty that is now his only habitation—shelter, it is none;
and this was just the last remedy that an Irish agent, or middle man, or
tythe-proctor, or absentee, would prescribe or submit to.

But to return. "These salaries are too small." I cannot agree with
the gentleman. There is one touchstone of such a question—it is the
avidity with which those situations are sought—I will not say by members
of this House—we are hardly deemed of sufficient rank to fill them. A
receivership or inspectorship of the LAND OFFICE must do for us; ay, even
for such of us as, by our single vote, have made a President. Sir, the
generous steed by whose voice the son of Hystaspes was elevated to the
throne of Persia, was better recompensed, as he deserved to be, than the
venal asses whose braying has given a ruler to seven millions of freemen,
and to a domain far surpassing in power as well as extent that of the
great King—the Grand Monarque of antiquity! So long as these
foreign missions are sought with avidity—so long as members of Congress,
and not of this House only, or chiefly, will bow, and cringe, and duck,
and fawn, and get out of the way at a pinching vote, or lend a helping
hand at a pinching vote, to obtain these places, I never will consent to
enlarge the salary attached to them. Small as the gentleman tells us those
salaries are, I will take it on me to say, that they are three times as great
as they are now managed, as the net proceeds of his estate, made by any
planter on the Roanoke. But then we are told that they live at St. Petersburgh
and London, and that living there is very expensive. Well, sir,
who sent them there? Who pressed them to go there? Were they impressed
there like D'Auterive's slave? Were they taken, like a free-born
Englishman, by a press-gang, on Tower hill, knocked down, handcuffed,
chucked on board of a tender, and told that they must take the pay and
rations which his Majesty was pleased to allow? No such thing, sir. I
will now quit this subject, and say only this, that our minister (Mr. Adams)
was paid for a constructive journey—that, I think, is the phrase, which
means neither more nor less than a journey, which was never performed.

[Here Mr. Everett made a gesture of dissent.]

The gentleman shakes his head. Sir, we shall see more of this hereafter,
but I will reason only hypothetically. If the gentleman in question,
while he remained at St. Petersburgh, could make the journey imputed to
him, it beats the famous journey from Mexico to Tacubaya, as far as some
distance, however small, exceeds no distance whatsoever. If a gentleman
from Washington goes to Georgetown or to Alexandria; yes, sir, to Bladensburg,
I will acknowledge that he performs, at least in some sense, a
sort of journey. But not if he remains in this city, and never stirs out of
it. However, I will not now press this matter farther—others will do
more justice to it—de minimis non curat.

Paulo majora canamus: There was one remark which I took down
while the gentleman was speaking, and which I cannot pass over. Who
that gentleman was, described by the member from Massachusetts, who
proposed to him that if he would move to raise these salaries that gentleman
would join with him and support him, I cannot conjecture or divine.
Be he who he may, I will venture to say thus much: He is some gentleman
who expects to be sent upon a mission himself, and, with great forecast
and prudence, he was calculating to throw upon the present administration
beforehand all the odium of the increase of the salary which he
hoped to finger. I am disposed to be more just to the gentleman and to
the administration, because I believe that he will get full as much as he
may deserve; and they have full as much weight as they can carry, without
adding to it another feather.

I am afraid that I may be charged with some want of continuity, but
what I have to say is at least as relevant; ay, and as pertinent too to the
subject before the House as the handbill which the gentleman read, till
his delicacy would permit him to read no farther, though I must confess I
thought that he had already gone so far that there was no ultima Thule
beyond. Sir, the gentleman might have spared himself this last exertion
of his delicacy, and even have read to the end. There could be nothing
more gross behind than what we had already heard, and were to hear, in
the case of the ill-fated Queen of France. The gentleman, with much
gravity, with some dexterity, and with great plausibility, but against certain
principles which I have held in this House, ab ovo, and which I shall continue
to hold, usque ad mala, till I leave the feast, spoke of the headlong
commencement of the opposition before the administration could give reasonable
cause of discontent. I have now no palinodia to sing or to chant

upon that subject. I drew from that fountain, which never failed an observing
and sagacious man, and which even the simple and inexperienced
(and I among the rest) may drink at—it is nature and human life. I saw
distinctly, from the beginning, that if we permitted this administration—
if we listened to those who cried to us, "Wait, wait, there is a lion in the
path" (and, sir, there always is a lion in the path to the sluggard and the
dastard), and which cry was seconded no doubt by many who wished to
know how the land lay before they ran for a port—on which side victory
would incline before they sounded their horn of triumph. If we had thus
waited, the situation of the country would have been very different from
what it is now. Sir, there was a great race to be run—if you will permit
me to draw an illustration from a sport to which I have been much addicted—one
in which all the gentlemen in Virginia, when we had gentlemen
in Virginia, delighted, and of which I am yet very fond—I mean
from the turf—and it must be lost or won, as the greatest race in this country
was won—I mean the race on Long Island, which I saw, and that was
by running every inch of the ground—by going off at score—by following
the policy of Purdy. Purdy, sir, was a man of sound sense and practical
knowledge—a man of common sense I mean, and worth a thousand of
your old and practised statesmen and "premature" gentlemen who never
arrive at maturity—and who, meaning to side with the next administration
in case of our success, were, nevertheless, resolved to get all they could
in the meantime out of this. Sir, to one of these trimming gentry, it is
worse than death to force him to take sides before a clear indication of
victory; and hence the cry of its being "premature," to stir the question
of the next Presidential election. If we had set off one session later, we
should not have had ground enough left to run upon, to overtake, and pass,
and beat them, before they would have passed the winning post and
pocketed the stakes. Such would have been the effect if we had delayed
our push, and I know no one who would have enjoyed the result and
chuckled at our folly with more hearty glee than one of these same old and
practised statesmen. [Here something was said which our reporter did
not hear, and to which Mr. Everett was understood to reply, that he had
not stated it as his sentiment, but as a fact.] I beg the gentleman's pardon:
I never was misrepresented by him, and I never will misrepresent
him unless I misunderstand him. But I wonder it never occurred to the
gentleman from Massachusetts what could be the cause why such a hue and
cry should be raised against an administration so very able (permit me in
this, however, to differ from the gentleman—de gustibus non est); what, I
say, could have been the cause why Actæon and all his hounds, or, rather,
why the dogs of war were let slip against this wise and able and virtuous
and loving administration; these patterns of political friendship and consistency;
and have continued to pursue them, till they lie panting and
gasping for breath on the highway—until they realize the beautiful fable
of the hare and many friends. The cause of all this is to be found in the
manner in which they came into power—the cause of this "premature"
opposition lies there, and there mainly. I would defy all the public presses
in the world to have brought them to this pass, had there not been a taint
of original sin in their body politic, and which cleaves to them even as
the sin of our first parents taints our fallen nature and cleaveth to us all.
The gentleman refers to those who compose the party called the opposition,
and says it is formed of very discordant materials. True, sir; but
what are the materials of the party which upholds the administration;
nay, of the administration itself? Are they perfectly homogeneous? I
know one of them, who has been raised to a higher station than most men
in this country. Was that because he opposed, or because he espoused,
the election of the present chief magistrate?

Let me ask the gentleman from Massachusetts what could cause the old
Republican party in New England—the worthy successors of John Langdon[4]
—to be now found acting with us? They know—but perhaps some
in this House do not know—they know that the southern interest is as
much their ally in protecting them against an overweening oligarchy at
home, as England is the natural ally of Portugal against the power of
Spain and France; and though they left us for a time, yet now apprehending
danger, and seeing through the artifices of their betrayer, they have
returned to us their old, natural, and approved allies. Have not the administration
as well as the opposition ways and means and funds in their
hands to obtain influence and buy success? Have they not the whole of
the great mass of patronage in their hands? But the gentleman says, that
so far from taking care of their adherents, they have been too liberal in
bestowing this upon their enemies. But it is easy to account for this. An
ancient apophthegm tells us that it is better to judge between two of your

enemies than between two of your friends. In the one case you are
almost sure by your decision to make a friend, and in the other to lose
one. Now, sir, our able and practised statesmen know that by giving a
loaf and a fish to an enemy they make a friend, when by giving them to
one of their friends they might disoblige another, who might think his
claims disparaged—and that, sir, is the whole secret of their neglecting
their friends.

Permit me, sir, again to ask, how comes it that this administration are
brought into their present very curious and unprecedented predicament?
How happens it that they alone, of all the administrations which have
been in this country, find themselves in the minority in each House of
Congress—"palsied by the will of their constituents"—when the very
worst of their predecessors kept a majority till midnight on the third or
fourth of March, whichever you please to call it? Ay, sir, under the administration
to which I allude, there were none of these compunctious
visitings of nature at the attacks made on private character. We had no
chapter of lamentations then on the ravaging and desolating war on the
fair fame of all the wise and virtuous and good of our land. The notorious
Peter Porcupine, since even better known as William Cobbet, was
the especial protegè of that administration. I heard them say, I do not
mean the head of that administration, but one of its leaders, that he was
the greatest man in the world; and I do not know that, in point of sheer
natural endowment, he was so very far wrong. Yes, sir, it was that very
Cobbet, who, if the late publications may be trusted, now says that Mr.
Adams has fifteen hundred slaves in Virginia. Was there any slander too
vile, too base for that man to fabricate? I remember well the nicknames
under which we passed—yes, sir, I can proudly say we, although the
humblest in the ranks: Mr. Gallatin was Citoyen Guillotine, with le
petit fenetre national at his back. The caricature then, as well as now,
constituted no small part of the munitions of political war. The pencil
and the graver (they had no want of tools of any sort) lent their aid to the
pen and the ballad and the military band of music. "Down with the
French!" (that is, the best men of our country,) was the cry. My excellent
and able colleague, Mr. Nicholas—one of the purest and most pious
of men, who afterwards removed to the State of New York, and was a
model of Republican virtue and simplicity, that might have adorned the
best days of Sparta or of Rome—he, sir, having the misfortune to lose an

eye, was held up to ridicule as Polyphemus?[5] You are shocked at this,
sir; but let me tell you that it was only a little innocent, harmless, Federal
wit—and the author was the especial protegè of "government" and its
adherents. All chuckled over the Porcupine. To that party the present
incumbent then belonged—and another member of this pure administration;
and these two Sedition Laws, black-cockade heroes, are recommended
by the "anti-Jackson Convention" to Virginia for her President
and Vice President! They have not even the merit of an early conversion.
They are true Swiss of State—point d'argent, point de Suisse.
My venerable friend from North Carolina was Monsieur Maçon, with a
cedilla under the ç, to mark him the more for a Frenchman. I forget the
cognomen of the learned gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Livingston): I
know that he was never spared. I remember well my own: I wish, sir,
it was applicable now, for I was then a boy. Every sanctuary was then
invaded. As to Mr. Jefferson, every epithet of vituperation was exhausted
upon him. He was an atheist, a Frenchman; we were all atheists and
traitors; our names and cause associated with the cannibals and the cannibalism
of the revolutionary tribunal, and with all the atrocities, the most
atrocious and revolting of which has this day been presented to the House
by the chaste imagination of the gentleman from Massachusetts. Yes, sir,
then, as now, a group of horrors was pressed upon the public imagination,
to prop the sinking cause of a desperate administration. Religion and
order were to be subverted, the national debt to be sponged, and the country
to be drenched in its best blood by Mr. Jefferson and his Jacobin adherents.
Even good men, and not unwise men, were brought to believe this.
Mr. Jefferson was elected; and we know what followed. But this, it may
be said, was not done by our own people; it was done by foreign hirelings,
mercenaries. Sir, it is not only of this description of persons that I
speak. It was done in the glorious days of the Sedition Law and the
black cockade, when we found in General Shee and his legion protection
against the Prætorian bands of the administration. These brave fellows
were many of them Irish or German, and most of them of Irish or German
parentage, chiefly from the Northern Liberties, then the stronghold of
Republicanism; and therefore branded with the opprobrious name of the
Fauxboug St. Antoine, the most Jacobin quarter of Paris.

At the very time that the act noted by the gentleman from Massachusetts
was passed (May, 1800), when Professor Cooper was escorted to jail,
a victim of the Sedition Law, the New York election then, as of late,
rung the knell of the departing administration. Sir, when the gentleman
favored us with his opinion of the present stupendous administration, I
imagine he drew it from a comparison with some of the administrations
which preceded it. In comparison with some of these, even this administration
is great: for we have seen the least of all possible things—the
poorest of all poor creatures that ever was manufactured into a head of a
department (and that's a bold word), a member of a former administration—almost
a satire on the name. This personage, as I have very lately
learned, in imitation of another great man from the same State, took some
liberties in public with my name, when he had the Atlantic for a barrier,
the Summer before last. Like his great friend, his courage shows itself
three thousand miles off. It is in the ratio of the square of the distance
of his adversary. Sir, I should like to have seen how he would have
looked, if, on finishing his harangue, he had found me at his elbow. I
think I can conceive how he would have felt.[6]

Sir, I have much to say, which neither my own weakness, nor my regard
to the politeness of this House, will permit me now to say. As I
have exonerated the principal of that weighty affair of the billiard table,
I also exonerate him and his lieutenant from every charge of collusion—
in the first instance; and, if it is in order, I will state the reasons for my
opinion. When the first alliance was patched up between the two great
leaders of the East and West, neither of the high contracting parties had
the promotion of the present incumbent at all in view. Sir, I speak

knowingly as to one of these parties, and with the highest degree of moral
probability of the other.[7] Can it be necessary that I prove this? The
thing proves itself. The object was to bring in one of the parties to the
compact, whom the constitution subsequently excluded, and, of course, to
provide for the other. A gentleman, then of this House, was a candidate,
who, to the last hour, cast many a longing, although not lingering, look,
with outstretched neck, towards Louisiana—jugulo quæsita negatur—to
discover whether or not he should be one upon the list. Sir, it is impossible
that he could, in the first instance, have looked to the elevation of
another, or have designed to promote the views of any man, but in subserviency
to his own. Common sense forbids it. But all these calculations,
however skilful, and Demoivre could not have made better, utterly
failed. The partners had two strings to their bow—Mr. Crawford's death,
or Mr. Clay's being ahead of Mr. Crawford, by getting the vote of Louisiana,
or those votes in New York which were so strangely, and at the
time unaccountably, given to Mr. Crawford. They took the field with a
double percussion gun, and banged away, right and left; but, good marksmen
as they were, both barrels missed. Louisiana refused to vote as obstinately
as Mr. Crawford refused to die; and so the gentleman was excluded.
It was then that Mr. Adams was first taken up, as a pis aller,
which we planters of the south translate, a hand plant.

Sir, I have a right to know; I had a long while before an interview
with the very great man; but not on that subject: no, Sir,—It was about
business of this house—and he so far descended, or I should rather say
of so very great a man, condescended, as to electioneer even with me.
He said to me, among other things, "if you of the South will give
us of the West any other man than John Quincy Adams for President,
we will support him." Let any man deny this who dare—but remember,
he then expected to be a candidate before the House himself. "If you
will give us any other man!" Sir, the gentleman in question can have no
disposition to deny it. It was at a time when he and the present incumbent
were publicly pitted against each other, and Mr. Adams crowed
defiance and clapped his wings against the Cock of Kentucky. Sir, I
know this to be a strong mode of expression. I did not take it literally.
I thought I understood the meaning to be that Virginia, by her strenuous
support of Mr. Crawford, would further the success of Mr. Adams. "Any

other man, sir, besides John Quincy Adams." Now, as neither Mr. Crawford
nor General Jackson in the end proved to be "any other man," it
follows clearly who any other man was, viz: one other man—id est, myself
(as a gentleman once said in this House), "we will support him."
But, sir, as soon as this egomet was out of the question, we of the South
lost all our influence, and "we of the West" gave us of the South this very
John Quincy Adams for President, and received from him the very office,
which being held by him, we of the West assigned as the cause of our support,
considering it to be a sort of reversionary interest in the presidency.
(See the letter to Mr. F. Brooke.) It was, indeed, "ratsbane in our
mouth," but we swallowed the arsenic.[8]

Sir, a powerful party of New England was equally opposed to Mr.
Adams, the high Federal party, or the Essex junto, so-called—all the successors
of the George Cabots, and Caleb Strongs, and Stephen Higginsons—I
should rather say their representatives, and all their surviving
coadjutors—were against him, with one exception, and that was an honest
man, of whom it was said in this House that he ought to desire no other
epitaph but that which might truly be inscribed to his tomb: "Here lies
the man who was honored by the friendship of Washington, and the
enmity of his successor." Sir, who persecuted the name of Hamilton
while living, and followed him beyond the grave? The father and the
son. Who were the persecutors of Fisher Ames, whose very grave was
haunted as if by vampyres? Both father and son. Who attempted to
libel the present chief justice, and procure his impeachment—making the
seat of John Smith, of Ohio, the peg to hang the impeachment on? The

son. I, as one of the grand jury, and my colleague, Mr. Garnett,[9] were
called upon by the chairman of the committee of the Senate in Smith's
case (Mr. Adams) to testify in that case. Sir, do you remember a committee,
raised at the same time in this House, to inquire whether the failure
of Burr's prosecution grew out of "the evidence, the law, or the adminis
tration of the law?" For my sins I suppose I was put upon that committee.
The plain object was the impeachment of the judge who presided
on the trial. This was one of the early oblations (the first was the writ of
habeas corpus) of the present incumbent on the altar of his new political
church. Who accused his former Federal associates in New England of
a traitorous conspiracy with the British authorities in Canada to dismember
the Union? The present incumbent. Yet all is forgiven him—
Hamilton, Ames, Marshall, themselves accused of treason—all is forgiven;
and these men, with one exception, now support him; and for
what?

Sir, I will take the letter to the President of the Court of Appeals in
Virginia, and on that letter, and on facts which are notorious as the sun at
noonday, it must be established that there was a collusion, and a corrupt
collusion, between the principals in this affair. I do not say the agreement
was a written or even a verbal one—I know that the language of
the poet is true—that men who "meet to do a damned deed" cannot bring
even themselves to speak of it in distinct terms—they cannot call a spade
a spade—but eke out their unholy purpose with dark hints, and inuendoes,
and signs, and shrugs, where more is meant than meets the ear. Sir,
this person was willing to take any man who would secure the end that he
had in view. He takes office under Mr. Adams, and that very office too
which had been declared to be in the line of safe precedents—that very
office which decided his preference of Mr. Adams. Sir, are we children?
Are we babies? Can't we make out apple-pie, without spelling and putting

the letters together—a-p, ap, p-l-e, ple, ap-ple, p-i-e, pie, apple-pie?
Sir, the fact can never be got over, and it is this fact which alone could
make this administration to rock and totter to its base in spite of the indiscretion
(to say no worse), in spite of all the indiscretions of its adversaries.
For, sir, there never was a man who had so much cause as General
Jackson has had to say, "Save me from my friends and I will take care of
my enemies." Yes, sir, he could take care of his enemies—from them
he never feared danger; but not of his friends—at least of some, whose
vanity has prompted them to couple their obscure names with his—and it
is because he did take care of his enemies, who were his country's enemies,
and for other reasons which I could state, that his cause is now espoused
by that grateful country. "But General Jackson is no statesman." Sir, I
deny that there is any instance on record in history of a man not having
military capacity being at the head of any government with advantage to
that government, and with credit to himself. There is a great mistake on
this subject. It is not those talents which enable a man to write books
and make speeches that qualify him to preside over a government. The
wittiest of poets has told us, that

We have seen Professors of Rhetoric who could no doubt descant fluently
upon the use of these said tools; yet sharpen them to so wiry an edge as
to cut their own fingers with these implements of their trade. Thomas à
Becket was as brave a man as Henry the Second, and, indeed, a braver
man—less infirm of purpose. And who were the Hildebrands and the
rest of the Papal freebooters who achieved victory after victory over the
proudest monarchs and states of christendom? These men were brought
up in a cloister perhaps, but they were endowed with that highest of all
the gifts of heaven, the capacity to lead men, whether in the Senate or the
field. Sir, it is one and the same faculty, and its successful display has
always received, and ever will receive, the highest honors that man can
bestow; and this will be the case do what you will, cant what you may,
about military chieftains and military domination. So long as man is man,
the victorious defender of his country will, and ought, to receive that
country's suffrage for all that the forms of her government allow her to
give.

A friend said to me, not long since, "Why General Jackson can't

write"—"admitted." (Pray, sir, can you tell me of any one that can
write? for I protest I know nobody that can.) Then turning to my friend
I said, "It is most true that General Jackson cannot write" (not that he
can't write his name, or a letter, &c.), "because he has never been taught;
but his competitor cannot write, because he was not teachable;" for he has
had every advantage of education and study. Sir, the Duke of Marlborough,
the greatest captain and negotiator of his age—which was the
age of Louis XIV—and who may rank with the greatest men of any age;
whose irresistible manners and address triumphed over every obstacle in
council, as his military prowess and conduct did in the field—this great man
could not even spell, and was notoriously ignorant of all that an under
graduate must know, but which it is not necessary for a man at the head
of affairs to know at all. Would you have superseded him by some Scotch
schoolmaster? Gentlemen forget that it is an able helmsman we want for
the ship of State, and not a Professor of Navigation or Astronomy.

Sir, among the vulgar errors that ought to go into Sir Thomas Brown's
book this ought not to be omitted: that learning and wisdom are not
synonymous, or at all equivalent. Knowledge and wisdom, as one of our
most delightful poets sings—

And not books only, sir—speeches are not less deceptive. I not only
consider the want of what is called learning not to be a disqualification for
the command in chief in civil or military life, but I do consider the possession
of too much learning to be of most mischievous consequence to such
a character; who is to draw from the cabinet of his own sagacious mind,
and to make the learning of others, or whatever other qualities they may
possess, subservient to his more enlarged and vigorous views. Such a man
was Cromwell—such a man was Washington.[10] Not learned, but wise.

Their understandings were not clouded or cramped, but had fair play.
Their errors were the errors of men, not of school boys and pedants. So
far from the want of what is called education being a very strong objection
to a man at the head of affairs, over-education constitutes a still
stronger objection. [In the case of a lady it is fatal. Heaven defend me
from an over-educated, accomplished lady. Yes, accomplished indeed,
for she is finished for all the duties of a wife, or mother, or mistress of a
family.] We hear much of military usurpation—of military despotism—of
the sword of a conqueror—of Cæsar, and Cromwell, and Bonaparte.
What little I know of Roman history has been gathered chiefly from the
surviving letters of the great men of that day—of Cicero especially—and
I freely confess that, if I had then lived, and had been compelled to take
sides, I must, though very reluctantly, have sided with Cæsar, rather than
have taken Pompey for my master. It was the interest of the house of
Stuart—and they were long enough in power to do it—to blacken the
character of Cromwell—that great, and, I must add, bad man. But, sir,
the devil himself is not so black as he is sometimes painted. And who
would not rather have obeyed Cromwell than that self-styled Parliament,
which obtained a title too indecent for me to name, but by which it is
familiarly known and mentioned in all the historians from that day to this.
Cromwell fell under a temptation, perhaps too strong for the nature of man
to resist—but he was an angel of light to either of the Stuarts—the one
whom he brought to the block, or his son, a yet worse man, the blackest
and foulest of miscreants that ever polluted a throne. It has been the
policy of the house of Stuart and their successors—it is the policy of
kings to vilify and blacken the memory and character of Cromwell. But
the cloud is rolling away. We no longer consider Hume as deserving of
the slightest credit. Cromwell was "guiltless of his country's blood."
His was a bloodless usurpation. To doubt his sincerity at the outset, from
his subsequent fall, would be madness—religious fervor was the prevailing
temper and fashion of the times. Cromwell was no more of a fanatic
than Charles the First, and not so much of a hypocrite. It was not in his
nature to have signed the attainder of such a friend as Lord Strafford,
whom Charles meanly and selfishly and basely and cruelly and cowardly
repaid for his loyalty to him by an ignominious death—a death deserved,
indeed, by Strafford, for his treason to his country, but not at the hands of
his faithless, perfidious master. Cromwell was an usurper, 'tis granted;
but he had scarcely any choice left him. His sway was every way preferable
to that miserable corpse of a Parliament that he turned out, as a
gentleman would turn off a drunken butler and his fellows; or the pensioned
tyrant that succeeded him—a dissolute, depraved bigot and hypocrite,
who was outwardly a Protestant, and at heart a Papist. He lived
and died one, while pretending to be a son of the church of England;
ay, and swore to it, and died a perjured man. If I must have a master,
give me one whom I can respect, rather than a knot of knavish attorneys.
Bonaparte was a bad man; but I would rather have had Bonaparte than
such a set of corrupt, intriguing, public plunderers as he turned adrift.[11]
The Senate of Rome—the Parliament of England—"the councils of elders
and of youngsters"—the Legislature of France—all made themselves
first odious and then contemptible; and then comes an usurper; and
this is the natural end of a corrupt civil government.

There is a class of men who possess great learning, combined with inveterate
professional habits, and who are ipso facto, or perhaps I should
rather say ipsis factis, for I must speak accurately, as I speak before a professor,
disqualified for any but secondary parts anywhere—even in the
cabinet. Cardinal Richelieu was what? A priest. Yes, but what a
priest! Oxenstiern was a chancellor. He it was who sent his son abroad
to see—quam parva sapientia regitur mundus—with how little wisdom
this world is governed. This administration seemed to have thought that
even less than that little would do for us. The gentleman called it a
strong, an able cabinet—second to none but Washington's first cabinet. I
could hardly look at him for blushing. What! Sir, is Gallatin at the
head of the treasury?—Madison in the department of State? The mind
of an accomplished and acute dialectician, of an able lawyer, or, if you
please, of a great physician, may, by the long continuance of one pursuit—of
one train of ideas—have its habits so inveterately fixed, as effectually
to disqualify the possessor for the command of the councils of a
country. He may, nevertheless, make an admirable chief of a bureau—
an excellent man of details—which the chief ought never to be. A man
may be capable of making an able and ingenious argument on any subject
within the sphere of his knowledge; but every now and then the master

sophist will start, as I have seen him start, at the monstrous conclusions to
which his own artificial reasoning had brought himself. But this was a
man of more than ordinary natural candor and fairness of mind. Sir, by
words and figures you may prove just what you please; but it often and
most generally is the fact, that in proportion as a proposition is logically
or mathematically true, so is it politically and commonsensically (or rather
nonsensically) false. The talent which enables a man to write a book or
make a speech, has no more relation to the leading of an army or a Senate
than it has to the dressing of a dinner. The talent which fits a man
for either office is the talent for the management of men—a mere dialectician
never had, and never will have it; each requires the same degree of
courage, though of different kinds. The very highest degree of moral
courage is required for the duties of government. I have been amused
when I have seen some dialecticians, after asserting their words—"the
counters of wise men, the money of fools"—after they had laid down
their premises, and drawn, step by step, their deductions,[12] sit down, completely
satisfied, as if the conclusions to which they had brought themselves
were really the truth—as if it were irrefragably true. But wait
until another cause is called, or till another court sits—till the bystanders
and jury have had time to forget both argument and conclusion, and they
will make you just as good an argument on the other side, and arrive with
the same complacency at a directly opposite conclusion, and triumphantly
demand your assent to this new truth. Sir, it is their business—I do not
blame them. I only say that such a habit of mind unfits men for action,
for decision. They want a client to decide for them which side to take;
and the really great man performs that office. This habit unfits them for
government in the first degree. The talent for government lies in these
two things—sagacity to perceive, and decision to act. Genuine statesmen
were never made such by mere training—nascunter non fiunt—education
will form good business men. The maxim (nascitur non fit) is as true
of statesmen as it is of poets. Let a house be on fire, you will soon see
in that confusion who has the talent to command. Let a ship be in danger
at sea, and ordinary subordination destroyed, and you will immediately
make the same discovery. The ascendancy of mind and of character
exists and rises as naturally and as inevitably, where there is free play for
it, as material bodies find their level by gravitation. Thus a great logician,
like a certain animal, oscillating between the hay on different sides
of him, wants some power from without, before he can decide from which
bundle to make a trial. Who believes that Washington could write as
good a book or report as Jefferson, or make as able a speech as Hamilton?
Who is there that believes that Cromwell would have made as good a
judge as Lord Hale? No, sir; these learned and accomplished men find
their proper place under those who are fitted to command, and to command
them among the rest. Such a man as Washington will say to a Jefferson,
do you become my Secretary of State; to Hamilton, do you take
charge of my purse, or that of the nation, which is the same thing; and
to Knox, do you be my master of the horse. All history shows this; but
great logicians and great scholars are for that very reason unfit to be rulers.
Would Hannibal have crossed the Alps when there were no roads—with
elephants—in the face of the warlike and hardy mountaineers—and have
carried terror to the very gates of Rome if his youth had been spent in
poring over books? Would he have been able to maintain himself on the
resources of his own genius for sixteen years in Italy, in spite of faction
and treachery in the Senate of Carthage, if he had been deep in conic sections
and fluxions, and the differential calculus—to say nothing of botany,
and mineralogy, and chemistry? "Are you not ashamed," said a philosopher,
to one who was born to rule; "are you not ashamed to play so well
upon the flute?" Sir, it was well put. There is much which it becomes
a secondary man to know—much that it is necessary for him to know that
a first rate man ought to be ashamed to know. No head was ever clear
and sound that was stuffed with book learning. You might as well attempt
to fatten and strengthen a man by stuffing him with every variety
and the greatest quantity of food. After all, the chief must draw upon his
subalterns for much that he does not know, and cannot perform himself.
My friend, William R. Johnson, has many a groom that can clean and
dress a race horse, and ride him too, better than he can. But what of
that? Sir, we are, in the European sense of the term, not a military people.
We have no business for an army—it hangs as a dead weight upon
the nation—officers and all. All that we hear of it is through pamphlets,
indicating a spirit that, if I was at the head of affairs, I should very
speedily put down. A state of things that never could have grown up
under a man of decision of character at the head of the State or the department—a
man possessing the spirit of command—that truest of all tests
of a chief, whether military or civil. Who rescued Braddock when he
was fighting—secundum artem—and his men were dropping around him
on every side? It was a Virginia militia major. He asserted in that crisis
the place which properly belonged to him, and which he afterwards filled
in the manner we all know.

Sir, I may, without any mock modesty, acknowledge what I feel, that I
have made an unsuccessful reply to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
There are some subjects which I could have wished to have touched upon
before I sit down now and forever. I had the materials in my possession
when I came to the House this morning, but I am disabled by physical
weakness from the most advantageous use of them.

What shall we say to a gentleman, in this House or out of it, occupying
a prominent station, and filling a large space in the eye of his native State,
who should, with all the adroitness of a practised advocate, gloss over the
acknowledged encroachments of the men in power upon the fair construction
of the constitution, and then present the appalling picture, glaring and
flaming, in his deepest colors, of a bloody military tyrant—a raw-head and
bloody-bones—so that we cannot sleep in our beds; who should conjure
up all the images that can scare children, or frighten old women—I mean
very old women, sir—and who offers this wretched caricature—this vile
daub, where brick-dust stands for blood, like Peter Porcupine's Bloody
Buoy, as a reason for his and our support in Virginia, of a man in whom
he has no confidence, whom he damns with faint praise—and who,
moreover—tell it not in Gath! had zealously and elaborately (I cannot say
ably) justified every one of these very atrocious and bloody deeds? Yes,
sir, on paper—not in the heat of debate, in the transports of a speech,
but—as the author of the Richmond Anathema full well knew—and knew
that we, too, knew—deliberately and officially. Who instituted the festival
of Santa Victoria on the 8th of January in honor of General Jackson,
and of Mrs. Jackson too? The present incumbent, when Mr. Crawford
was the great object of dread. If we did not know that lawyers never see
but one side of a case—that on which they are retained, and that they
fondly hope that the jury will see with their eyes—what should we say of
such a man? His client having no character, he attacks defendant's character
upon a string of charges, in every one of which (supposing them to
be true) his client was self avowed particeps criminis—having defended,
adopted, and made each and every one of them his own. Sir, such a man
may be a great lawyer (although this is but a poor specimen of his skill in
that line), or a great mathematician, or chemist; but of a man guilty of

such glaring absurdity it may be fearlessly pronounced that, in the management
of his own concerns and in the affairs of men, he has not "right
good common sense." And here, sir, we come to that great and all-important
distinction which the profane vulgar—whether they be the great
vulgar or the small—too often overlook; and which I have lamely, I fear,
endeavored to press upon the House—I mean the distinction between
knowledge and learning on the one hand, and sense and judgment on the
other. And there lies the great defect of the gentleman in question. I
have heard it said of him, by those who know, and love him well, "that
he can argue either side of a question, whether of law, of policy, or of
constitutional construction, with great ingenuity and force; but he wants
that sagacity in political affairs, which first discerns the proper end, and
then adopts the most appropriate means: and he is deficient in that knowledge
of mankind, which would enable another (much his inferior) to
perceive that his honest disinterestedness is played upon by those who
are conscious that he prides himself upon it. It is the lever by which he
is on all occasions to be moved. It is his pride—an honest and honorable
pride, which makes him delight to throw himself into minorities, because
he enjoys more self-gratification from manifesting his independence of
popular opinion—than he could derive from anything in the gift of the
people. His late production—the Adams Convention manifesto, is the
feeblest production of the day. The reason is, his head and heart did
not go together."[13]

This picture is drawn by the hand of a friend. As we have had billiard
tables and chess boards introduced into this debate, I hope I may be allowed
to borrow an illustration from this last game. One of these arguing
machines reminds me of the bishop at chess. The black or white bishop
(I use the term not in reference to the color of the piece, but of that of
the square he stands upon) is a serviceable piece enough in his way; but
he labors under this defect; that, moving in the diagonal only, he can
never get off his original color. His clerical character is indelible.[14] He
can scour away all over just one-half of the board; but his adversary may
be on the next square, and perfectly safe from his attack. To be safe from
the bishop, you have only to move upon any one of the thirty-two squares
that are forbidden ground to him. But not so the irregular knight, who,
at successive leaps, can cover every square upon the board, to whose check

the king can interpose no guard, but must move or die. Even the poor
pawn has a privilege which the bishop has not; for he can elude his mitred
adversary by moving from a white square to a black one, or from a black
square to a white one, and finally reach the highest honors of the game.
So even a poor peasant of sense may instruct the philosopher, as the shepherd
did, in that beautiful introduction, the finest of Mr. Gay's fables but
one, who drew all his notions of men and things from nature. It is in
vain to turn over musty folios, and to double down dog's ears; it does
very well in its place—in a lawyer's office or a bureau—I am forced to use
the word for want of a better; but it will not supply the place of that
which books never gave, and never can give—of sagacity, judgment and
experience. Who would make the better leader in a period of great public
emergency—old Roger Sherman, or a certain very learned gentleman
from New York, whom we once had here, who knew everything in the
world for which man has no occasion, and nothing in the world for which
man has occasion? The people, who are always unsophisticated—and
though they may occasionally be misled, are always right in their feelings,
and always judge correctly in the long run—have taken up this thing. It
is a notorious fact that in Virginia, in the county courts, where men are
admitted to sit as judges, who are not of the legal profession—plain planters,
who have no pretensions to be considered as lawyers—the decisions
are much seldomer reversed than in those courts where a barrister presides—his
reasons may be more plausible, but his decisions will be oftener
wrong. Yes, sir, the people have decided upon this thing.

On my return home last March I passed by Prince Edward Court-house.
It was court day. I had been abroad during the recess of Congress, and
I had not seen my constituents for two years. They crowded around me,
and many of them said, "Now we expect that you will explain to us how
it is that we are to vote for General Jackson." They, as well as myself,
had had objections to General Jackson, although I always said in regard
to him, "that I could put my finger upon his public services—that he had
strong claims upon his country, while his competitors, and the predecessor
of the successful one, had never rendered any for which they had not been
amply paid, and some of them greatly overpaid." My objections to General
Jackson were greatly diminished by a personal acquaintance with him
when he was last in the Senate. But to my constituents. Singling out
one of them, a steady old planter, and staunch Republican friend, I asked
him, "When you have had a faithless, worthless overseer, in whom you

could place no confidence, and have resolved to dismiss him, did you ever
change your mind, because, for no matter what reason, you could not get
the man that you preferred to every other? or have you been satisfied to
turn him off, and employ the best man that you could get?" Sir, a word
to the wise is enough. They were entirely satisfied, and in a few weeks
we were, as we are, unanimous for Jackson.

I will suppose a case: I will suppose that the late convulsive struggles
of the administration may so far succeed as they shall be able to renew
their lease for another four years. Now if a majority of this House can't
get along with such a minority hanging on their rear, cutting off supplies,
and beating up their quarters, what will be the situation of the administration
then? Sir, what is it now? "Palsied by the will of their constituents."
Did anybody ever hear of a victory obtained by the Executive
power while a decided majority of the Legislature was against it? I
know of no such victory, but one—and that was the parricidal victory of
the younger Pitt over the constitution of England; and he gained that
only by the impenetrable obstinacy of the king, which then gave indications
of the disease that was lurking in his constitution, and afterwards so
unhappily became manifest.

The king was an honest man, and a much abler man than he ever had
credit for. But he was incurably obstinate. He had just lost the colonies.
No matter—he would risk the Crown of England itself, and retire
to his hereditary States in Germany rather than yield; and, but for a barefaced
coalition, he would have so retired, and have supplied a most important
defect in the act of settlement—the separation of Hanover from
England. But the corrupt bargain of Lord North and Mr. Fox, to share
office between them, disgusted the people—they took side even against
their own liberties. But here the coalition is not on the side of the people's
rights, but against them. Mr. Pitt (the Crown rather) triumphed.
Knaves cried Hosanna; fools repeated the cry. England recovered by
that elasticity which belongs to free institutions, and Mr. Pitt attained a
degree of power that enabled him to plunge her into the mad vortex of
war with Revolutionary France. Nine hundred millions of debt; taxes,
in amount, in degree, in mode, unheard of; pauperism, misery, in all possible
forms of wretchedness; attest the greatness of the heaven-born
minister, who did not weather the storm, but was whelmed beneath it,
leaving his country to that Providence whom it pleased to rescue her in
her utmost need, by inflicting madness on her great unrelenting enemy,

and sending this modern Nebuchadnezzar to grass. Mr. Pitt is as strong
an instance for my purpose as I could have wanted. He was a rhetorician,
a speech maker; a man of words, and good words too, at will; a
dexterous debater; and if he had continued to ride the Western circuit,
he might have been an eminent wrangler at the bar, and, in due time, a
Chief Justice or Lord Chancellor. But, for the sins of England, he was
made Prime Minister, and at five-and-twenty, too. Mr. Pitt no more saw
what was ahead of him, than the pauper in the parish work-house. He
no more dreamed, when the war began, to what point he would be able
to push his system, if system it may be called, than any clerk in his office.
He did not even foresee the stoppage of the Bank, which he was compelled
to resort to in the fourth year of the war. If he had foreseen it,
the war would never have been made. Indeed, Mr. Pitt did not foresee
even the war—for in the preceding year, I think, he held out the promise
of a long peace to the faithful Commons.

The productive powers of a people like the English, where property is
perfectly secure and left free to act, and where the industrious classes are
shut out from almost any participation in public affairs, is incredible, is
almost without a limit. Two individuals discovered each a mine, more
precious and productive than Guanaxuato or Potosi, that furnished the
means for his prodigality, that astonished even Mr. Pitt. These were Sir
Richard Arkwright and Mr. Watt—the spinning machine and the steam
engine. And this imbecile and blundering Minister has been complimented
with what is due to the unrivalled ingenuity and industry of his
countrymen.[15] So, sir, in like manner this young Hercules of America,
who if we can keep him from being strangled in the cradle by the serpents
of corruption, must grow to gigantic strength and stature; every improvement
which he makes, in spite of the misrule of his governors, these
very modestly arrogate to themselves.

We have been told, officially, that the President wished the great question
to have been referred back to the people, if, by the forms of the constitution,
this could be done. If I were the friend, as I am the undisguised
enemy of this administration, I would say to them, you may be innocent,
your intentions may be upright, but you have brought the country to that
pass that you can't carry on the government. As gentlemen, possessing
the least self-respect, you ought to retire—leave it—try another venue—

you can't carry on the government without us, any more than we can act
while everything in the Executive Government is against us. Sir, there
are cases in which suspicion is equivalent to proof; and not only equal to
it, but more than equal to the most damning proof. There is not a husband
here who will not ratify this declaration—there may be suspicion so
agonizing that it makes the wretch cry out for certainty as a relief from
the most damning tortures. Such is the picture which the great master of
the human heart presents to us in the person of the noble Moor—and
Shakespeare seems to have known the heart of man as if himself had
made it. Such suspicions, resting on no false suggestions of an Iago, but
supported by a cloud of witnesses and a long array of facts and circumstances
that no sophistry can shake, are entertained with respect to these
gentlemen; and although they are making a convulsive effort to roll back
the tide of public opinion, they cant allay the feeling; the suspicion rests
upon the facts; and, do what they may, facts will not bend at their bidding.
Admit it to be suspicion, it is equally fatal as regards them and the
public service with the reality. Mr. R. would not go in pursuit of the alibis
and aliasses of the accused—of the tubs, whether with false bottoms or
double bottoms, thrown out to amuse the public. The whole conduct of
the accused had displayed nothing of the calm dignity of innocence, but
all the restlessness of conscious guilt. Every word of Mr. Clay's late
pamphlet might be true, and yet the accused be guilty notwithstanding.
Mr. R. would not now examine his inconsistent declarations to different
persons and at different times and occasions. The secretary was not the
first witness who had proved too much. "He who pleads his own
cause," says the proverb, "generally has a fool for his client."[16]

The gentleman from Massachusetts warned us, that if the individual we
seek to elevate shall succeed, he will in his turn become the object of public
pursuit, and that the same pack will be unkennelled at his heels that
have run his rival down. It may be so. I have no hesitation to say, that
if his conduct shall deserve it, and I live, I shall be one of that pack; because
I maintain the interests of stockholders against presidents, directors
and cashiers. And here, sir, I beg leave to notice an objection urged, as
I have heard, against me by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Vance). He
says that I have been opposed to all Administrations. Sir, I deny it to be
fact. I did oppose the elder Adams, because he attacked the liberty of

the press and of the subject, because his opinions were at war with the
genius of our institutions. He avowed them openly; and I liked him the
better for his frankness. But I supported for more than five years the
administration of his successor. I did for it what I could—little enough,
God knows. The first case in which I differed from that administration
was the ease of the Yazoo claims, which I thought a case of flagrant corruption!
I do not mean, and I never did believe, that there was corruption
in the president or his two secretaries; and it did not cause me to
separate myself from them. I separated from that administration three
years afterwards, with pain and sorrow, and not without some anger
too; for I have no idea of that extreme of candor and meekness which
denounces the measures of a government, as Bottom says in the play,
"and will roar you as gently as any suckling dove." It is not my nature
to do so; and it would be criminal and ridiculous in me, because it would
be hypocrisy to affect it. When the former restrictive system was first
commenced, I thought I saw what I now know I did then see—the fatal
and ruinous consequences that would grow out of it. I told Mr. Jefferson,
candidly and frankly, that if he expected support in a certain quarter and
did not find it, he must not impute want of candor to me. I will not
repeat what he told me on that occasion; it is unnecessary to say that his
language and conduct was that of a gentleman. I frankly laid before
him the facts and reasons which rendered such an event inevitable. I
will not repeat what he said: but he deplored it.

Sir, I know that he deplored it—for he told me so. And when some
of the ear-wigs, that infest all great men, sought to curry favor with him
by relating, after their manner, the hard and sharp things which I was
said to have uttered on the floor of this House on that occasion, he coldly
replied, that, to do Mr. R. justice, he had been full as explicit as severe
in his presence.[17] But permit me to reimnd you, sir—for you were then
too young to know much of these matters—that previously, but nearly at
the time of my leaving that administration, a certain wise man from the
East joined it, who soon after went off to Canada, under strong suspicion
of felony; and this was soon followed by a certain gentleman's giving in
his adhesion, who had before been violently opposed to it, and to all its

best measures. Sir, I have not the least objection to its being said of me,
that I separated myself from Mr. Jefferson, when Barnabas Bidwell and
John Quincy Adams joined him.[18]

[Here is, I presume, another proof of Mr. Randolph's opposition to all administration,
right or wrong.]

Mr. Ezekiel Bacon, of Massachusetts, moved to amend (in order to defeat it), and Mr.
John G. Jackson, of Virginia, moved the indefinite postponement of both the resolution
and amendment. It is curious to pursue the fate of this resolution through pages 39,
when the House refused to resume the consideration of the unfinished business (which
was Mr. Randolph's resolution)—pages 44, 45, 46—when the consideration of the resolution
was carried by yeas 66, against nays 61 (a lean majority!)—all the decided friends of
the administration voting in the minority, among them connexions of Mr. Madison himself—e.
g. John G. Jackson, Richard Cutts, who were nearly connected with him by
marriage. See further, pages 48, 49, 54, when the motion for indefinite postponement
being withdrawn by Mr. Jackson, was renewed by another member—pages 62, 63—when
(May 31st) the resolution received the go-by by an adjournment.

When Mr. Randolph was asked by the late Mr. Bayard and some other friend "What
he thought of the state of things?" He replied that "we must have war with England."
"With France you mean," said they. (For then our interdict—taken off England—was
in force against France.) "No, with England. The vote of the House of Representatives,
on the motion to approve the conduct of the President, assures me of that fact."
And accordingly he wrote to his correspondent in Virginia to the same effect.

The embargo struck the first staggering blow on our agriculture, and scuttled our ships.
The landed and navigating interests have never recovered from it. It is the nidus[19] of
the manufacturing system and policy—fostered since by the war by double duties and by
tariffs. What bounty on manufactures does the Harrisburg Convention propose that is
equal to a total prohibition of exports?

Some allusion has been made to the discordant materials of the present
opposition. They are somewhat discordant—at least they have been so.
But are they more so than the adherents of the present administration, or
the materials of the administration itself? I well remember almost the
first propitiation (the first was the writ of habeas corpus) which he who is
now the President of the United States made to Mr. Jefferson and his
party. It was an attempt to run down the present chief justice. The
right of John Smith to a seat in the Senate was made the peg to hang it
on. I will tell the gentleman the whole reason why I have opposed the
administration since that time, and may again, if, according to my judgment,
they shall not consult the good of the country. It is, Sir, simply
because I am for the interests of the stockholders—of whom I am one—
as opposed to those of the President, Directors, and Cashiers; and I have
the right of speaking my opinion, and shall exercise it, though it happen
to be against the greatest and proudest names.

Sir, I am no judge of human motives: that is the attribute of the name
which I will not take in vain—the attribute of Him who rules in heaven,
or who becomes incarnate upon earth: motives free from alloy belonged
to that Divine incarnation, and to Him only, of all that have borne the
form of man. Mere man can claim no such exemption.

I do not pretend that my own motives do not partake of their full share
of the infirmity of our common nature—but, of those infirmities, neither
avarice nor ambition form one iota in the composition of my present motives.
Sir, what can the country do for me? Poor as I am—for I am

General reflections are always unjust, and therefore unwise. Mr. Randolph greatly respects
many New England men, and many points in the New England character. He
regrets the change at home, as well as there, from the original distinctive marks of the
cavalier and the covenanter. New England has no longer her Samuel Adamses and her
Roger Shermans. Virginia also seeks in vain for her Washingtons, and Randolphs, and
Blands, and Lees, and Nelsons, and Henrys. But, at the worst, the character of a miser
is far preferable to that of a spendthrift. Even the cheat is not more contemptible than
the bubble.

much poorer than I have been—impoverished by unwise legislation—I
still have nearly as much as I know how to use—more certainly than I
have at all times made a good use of—and as for power what charm can
it have for one like me? If power had been my object, I must have been
less sagacious than my worst enemies have represented me to be (unless,
indeed, those who would have kindly shut me up in bedlam) if I had not
obtained it. I may appeal to all my friends to say whether "there have
not been times when I stood in such favor in the closet that there must
have been something very extravagant and unreasonable in my wishes if
they might not all have been gratified." Was it office? What, sir, to
drudge in your laboratories in the departments, or be at the tail of the
corps diplomatique in Europe? Alas! sir, in my condition a cup of cold
water would be more acceptable. What can the country give me that I
do not possess in the confidence of such constituents as no man ever had
before? I can retire to my old patrimonial trees, where I may see the sun
rise and set in peace. Sir, as I was returning the other evening from the
capitol, I saw—what has been a rare sight here this winter—the sun dipping
his broad disk among the trees behind those Virginia hills, not allaying
his glowing axle in the steep Atlantic stream; and I asked myself if,
with this Book of Nature unrolled before me,[20] I was not the most foolish
of men to be struggling and scuffling here in this heated and impure atmosphere,
where the play is not worth the candle? But then the truth
rushed upon my mind that I was vainly perhaps, but honestly, striving to
uphold the liberties of the people who sent me here—yes, sir, for can
those liberties coexist with corruption? At the very worst the question
recurs,—Which will the more effectually destroy them?—collusion, bargain
and corruption here, or a military despotism? When can that be
established over us? Never, till the Congress has become odious and
contemptible in the eyes of the people. I have learned, from the highest
of all authority, that the first step towards putting on incorruption is the
putting off corruption. That recollection nerves me in the present conflict,
for I know, that if we are successful, I shall hold over the head of those
who shall succeed the present incumbent a rod which they will not dare,
even if they had the inclination, to disobey. They will tremble at the
punishment of their predecessors. Sir, if we succeed, we shall restore
the constitution—we shall redress the injury done to the people—we shall
regenerate the country. If the administration which ensues shall be as
bad as the character of the opposing candidate [General Jackson] is represented
by his bitterest foes to be, still I had rather it were in the seat of
power than the present dynasty, because it will have been fairly elected.
The fountain of its authority will not be poisoned at the source. But if
we perish under the spasmodic struggles of those now in power to reinstate
themselves on the throne, our fate will be a sacred one—and who
would wish to survive it? There will be nothing left in the country worth
any man's possession. If after such an appeal has been made to the people,
and a majority has been brought into this and the other House of
Congress, this administration shall be able to triumph, it will prove that
there is a rottenness in our institutions which ought to render them unworthy
of any man's regard. Sir, my "church-yard cough" gives me
the solemn warning, that whatever part I shall take in the chase I may
fail of being in at the death. I should think myself the basest and the
meanest of men—I care not what the opinion of the world might be—I
should know myself to be a scoundrel, and should not care who else
knew it—if I could permit any motive, connected with division of the
spoil, to mingle in this matter with my poor but best exertions for the welfare
of my country. If gentlemen suppose that I am giving pledges they
are mistaken—I give none—they are entitled to none—and I give none.
I shall retire upon my resources—I will go back to the bosom of my constituents—to
such constituents as man never had before, and never will
have again—and I shall receive from them the only reward that I ever
looked for, but the highest that man can receive—the universal expression
of their approbation—of their thanks. I shall read it in their beaming
faces—I shall feel it in their gratulating hands. The very children will
climb around my knees to welcome me. And shall I give up them and
this? And for what? For the heartless amusements and vapid pleasures
and tarnished honors of this abode of splendid misery, of shabby splendor,
for a clerkship in the War Office, or a foreign misson, to dance
attendance abroad instead of at home, or even for a department itself? Sir,
thirty years make sad changes in man. When I first was honored with their
confidence I was a very young man, and my constituents stood almost in
parental relation to me, and I received from them the indulgence of a beloved
son. But the old patriarchs of that day have been gathered to their
fathers; some adults remain, whom I look upon as my brethren: but the far
greater part were children—little children—or have come into the world
since my public life began. I know among them grandfathers, and men
muster-free, who were boys at school when I first took my seat in Congress.
Time, the mighty reformer and innovator, has silently and slowly,
but surely, changed the relation between us; and I now stand to them in
loco parentis—in the place of a father—and receive from them a truly
filial reverence and regard. Yes, sir, they are my children—who resent,
with the quick love of children, all my wrongs, real or supposed. Shall
I not invoke the blessings of a common Father upon them? Shall I deem
any sacrifice too great for them? To them I shall return, if we are defeated,
for all the consolation that awaits me on this side of the grave. I
feel that I hang to existence but by a single hair—that the sword of
Damocles is suspended over me.

If we succeed, we shall have given a new lease to the life of the constitution.
But should we fail, I warn gentlemen not to pour out their
regrets on General Jackson. He will be the first to disdain them. The
object of our cause has been, not so much to raise Andrew Jackson to the
Presidency—be his merits what they may—as the signal and condign punishment
of those public servants on whom, if they be not guilty, the
strongest suspicion of guilt must ever justly rest.