POSTSCRIPT, IN LIEU OF A PREFACE.
It is unnecessary perhaps, but candor demands the avowal, to apprize
"the courteous reader" that there is much in the foregoing speech that
was not spoken on the floor of the House of Representatives. There are
some things too, for example, page 281, lines 32 to 38, reported not as the
speaker said them; but, at the distance of a fortnight, under the pressure of
other avocations, he could not correct such parts of the report. Not recollecting
what he did say, he was fain to let it stand, although he was conscious
that he had not said what is there set down. To his friends he is
indebted for the restoration of many passages which their memory had
preserved and recalled to Mr. Randolph's recollections. Of these he will
here indicate but two relating to Mr. Jefferson, in pages 402 and 303, and
the page preceding, referring to Othello.
This date speaks volumes to the old, tried, consistent Republicans.
This day, seven and twenty years ago, not two hours after its commencement,
the elder Adams[24]
took his flight from the capitol, shrouding himself
in darkness from the intolerable light of day and the public gaze.
What should we have said that morning if it had been predicted that the
son, without the recantation of a single principle, with no other recommendation
but that which has been held anything but a recommendation
elsewhere, with no other recommendation but that of an approver or
states' evidence should, in four and twenty years, succeed that father?
Ay, and that an "August Convention" in Virginia should recommend
and support that son for this high office against an uniform, unwavering,
tried Republican, who had fought in the war of our Revolution, and shed
his stripling blood for his country, and who, in the second war with England
had crowned himself and her with imperishable renown—laurels that
can never fade, that will flourish and grow green in history and in song,
while Mississippi shall pay his tribute to the sea!
Men of the South! matrons and maids of Louisiana! How say you?
Do you find against your defender? Republicans of every state and
clime! How say you? Do you find for the Sedition Law and its advocates
against a tried Republican in the Reign of Terror?
"Remember March! The Ides of March remember!"
"Shall Rome —? Speak, strike, redress!"
