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>;*SvrNv'% ^^i '•w >, THE LIBRARY v.l SPECIAL COLLECTIOMS :^'-!?«8=^^. ^^^^^''i'lt^j^ -':^_ ^j^^&€^: > jjp-iiWfeS *^t '^^^' «V^ ^-U": 'tijet^ „ . «iN*r-. .^^ilAi^ ..^ 1- ,.J^ ^f SUBSCRIBER'S COPY. Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive , in 2010 witii funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/americaneloquenc01inmoor ^;^ ''.;'' i>' V.^O^J^ukKitiri AMERICAN ELOQUENCE: ^ (EoUection of SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES, BY THE MOST EMINENT OEATORS OF AMERICA; WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, By frank MOORE. " There were Gyants in the earth in thofe dayes mightie men, which were of olde, men of renowne." IN TWO VOLUMES, VOL. I. NEW YOEK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY. COLUMBUS, 0.: FOLLETT & FOSTER. 185Y. AUBURN UNIVERSITY lALPH BROWN DRAUGHON UMAWT AUBURN, AlABAAAA 3««90 EuTEEED, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1857, by T>. APPLETON & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of Ne* York. PS LCI v./ SPECIAL GOLLtCTIOMS PREFACE. The design of the present work is to furnisli a convenient and popular Library Edition of tlie most celebrated Speeches and Addresses, forensic and parliamentary, of the principal Orators and Statesmen of America. It contains many which have never before been included in any collection ; and heretofore inaccessible to the student and general reader. As far as attainable, specimens of the eloquence of the Continental Congress have been given, which fully illustrate the principles and portray the sufferings of the Kevolutionary Period. Many entire speeches from the debates in Congress, since the year 17S9, under tne present organization of the Government, will also be found in this work. Selections from the earnest and able discussions in the State Conventions of the principles involved in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, also foi-m a considerable portion of the work ; and thus render it valuable as a means of acquiring an understanding of that important instrument. The biographical sketches, preceding the selections from the works of each orator, are intended to present a brief outline of their lives and public services, the limited space allowed for that portion of the work precluding more extended notices. The analytical index attached to the work may render it generally useful as a book of reference. The want of a work of this kind is too obvious to make any apology necessary for its publication at the present time. Should its success warrant such a course, another series, embracing the moke keoent and livikg oeatoks, prepared upon the same .plan, will be offered to the public. PREFACE, In closing, the Editor acknowledges his obligations to the numerous individuals from whom he has received valuable assistance, and especially to his brother, George H. Moore ; to Mrs. Laura Wolcott Gibbs, for permission to copy the miniature of Alexander Hamilton, painted by her, and now in her possession ; to Dr. John W. Francis, for the extension of his usual courtesies ; to Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman, for valuable suggestions ; to Mr. "William Hunter, of the State Department, Washington, for the material contained in the sketch of his father's life; to the Libraries of the New York Historical Society, the Mercantile Library Association, the ISTew York Society Library, and the Astor Library, as well as to the officers of these Institutions for the facility with which he has been enabled to make use of their valuable collections. New Yoek, August, 1st, 1857. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. J JAilES OTIS : Sketch of his Life, Speech on the Writs of Assistance, On the study of the Law, PATRICK HENRY : Sketch of his Life, . Speech on the Federal Constitution, . Another speech on the same subject. Reply to Edmund Randolph, . RICHARD HEXRT LEE : Sketch of his Life, .... Address of the American Colonies to the iU' habitants of Great Britain : 1775, . WILLIAM HENRY DRAYTON: Sketch of his Life, .... 48 Charge to the Grand Jury of Charleston Dis-trict, South Carolina : 1776, . . 50 JOSEPH WARREN : Sketch of his Life, . Oration on the Boston Massacre, JAMES WILSON : Sketch of his Life, .... 65 Vindication of the Colonies; a speech deliver-ed in the Convention for the Province of Pennsylvania: 1775, . . .68 Speech on the Federal Constitution, . 74 WILLIAM LIVINGSTON Sketch of his Life, . . . _ 82 Speech to the New Jersey Legislature : 1777, 88 FISHER AMES : Sketch of his Life, . . . .91 Speech on Madison's Resolutions, . , 92 Speech on the British Treaty, . . 104 JOHN RUTLED6E : Sketch of his Life, . . . .113 Address to the South Carolina Assembly: 1776, 120 Speech to the General Assembly : 1782, . 122 JAJIES MADISON: """ Sketch of his Life, . . . . 125 Speech on the Federal Constitution, j_ . 127 Speech on the British Treaty, . . .144 JOHN JAY: Sketch of his Life, .... 151 Address to the People of Great Britain : 1774, 159 EDMUND RANDOLPH : Sketch of his Life, . . . . 153 Speech on the Federal Constitution, . 165 Argument in the Trial of Aaron Burr, . 174 ALEXANDER HAMILTON : Sketch of his Life, .... 183 Speech on the Federal Constitution, . . 187 Remarks in the Federal Convention of New York, on Mr. Gilbert Livingston's pro-posed amendment to the Constitution, 195 Further remarks on the Federal Constitution, 200 Argument in the case of Harry Croswell, . 204 Speech on the Revenue System, . . 215 JOHN HANCOCK : Sketch of his Life, ....224 Oration on the Boston Massacre, . . 227 JOHN ADAMS : Sketch of his Life, ....232 Speech in defence ofthe British Soldiers: 1770, 235 Inaugural Address : 1797, . . . 248 GEORGE WASHINGTON: Sketch of his Life, Inaugural Address : 1789, Farewell Address, . 251 252 . 254 ELIAS BOUDINOT: Sketch of his Life, . . . .262 Oration before the New Jeraey Society of Cin-cinnati, . , . . . 264 Speech on Non-Intercourse with Great Brit-ain : 1794, . . . .270 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. JOHN DICKINSON: Sketch of his Life 273 Speech in the Pennsylvania Assembly : 1764, 277 The Declaration on Taking up Arms : 1775, 286 JOHN WITHERSPOON: Sketch of his Life 290 Speech on the Conference with Lord Howe, . 298 Remarks on the Confederation, . . 296 Speech on the Conyention with Eurgoyne, . 298 Speech on the Appointment of Plenipoten-tiaries, ..... 301 Speech on the Loan Office Certificates, . 303 A Portion of a speech on the Finances, . 305 DAVID RAMSAY : Sketch of his Life 308 Oration on the Advantages of American In-dependence, . . ; . . 310 Extract from an Oration on the Cession of Louisiana to the United States, . . 318 SAMUEL ADAMS Sketch of his Life, . . . .819 Oration on American Independence, . . 324 JOSIAH QUINCY, Jr: Sketch of his Life, . . . .331 An Appeal, under the signature of "Hy-perion :" 1768, . . . .334 Speech in Defence of the British Soldiers : 1770, 336 BENJAMIN RUSH : Sketch of his Life, . . . .346 Address to the People of the United States, 1787, previous to the meeting of the Federal Convention, . . . 347 BOBERT R. LIVINGSTON : Sketch of his Life, . . . .350 Oration before the New York Society of Cin-cinnati : 1787, . . '\ . - . 352 The Purse and Sword ; an extract, . . 355 H. H. BRACKENRIDGE : Sketch of his Life, . . . .356 An Eulogium on " the brave men who have fallen in the contest with Great Britain :" 1779, 358 CHARLES PINCKNEY : Sketch of his Life, . . . .361 Observations on the Federal Constitution, . 362 LUTHER MARTIN : Sketch of his Life 871 Speech on the Federal Convention, . . 373 OLIVER ELLSWORTH : Sketch of his Life 401 Remarks on the Federal Constitution, . 404 Speech on the Power of Congress to levy Taxes, ..... 406 CHRISTOPHER GORE : Sketch of his Life, . . . .410 Speech on the Prohibition of certain Imports : 1814, 412 Speech on Direct Taxation, . . . 417 RED JACKET : Sketch of his Life, . . . .423 Reply to Samuel Dexter, . . . 426 Defence of stifF-armed-George, . . 427 Reply to Mr. Cram, . . . .429 URIAH TRACY: Sketch of his Life, . . . .431 Speech on a proposed amendment of the Con-stitution: 1802, . . . .482 Remarks on the Judiciary Systetn, . 442 HENRY LEE : Sketch of his Life, . . . .447 Eulogy on Washington, . . . 449 60UVERNEUR MORRIS: Sketch of his Life, ....453 Speech on the Judiciary, . . ' . 457 Discourse before the New York Historical Society: 1812, . . . .466 Speech on the Navigation of the Mississippi, 475 Oration over the dead body of Hamilton, . 487 BOBERT GOODLOE HARPER : Sketch of his Life, . . . .489 Speech on the Aggressions of France, . 491 Speech on the Appointment of Foreign Minis-ters,...... 503 THOMAS ADDIS EMMET : Sketch of his Life, .... 825 Speech in the trial of William S. Smith, . 528 Argument in the trial of Robert M. Goodwin, 537 GEORGE RICHARDS MINOT : Sketch of his Life, .... 551 Eulogy on Washington, . . . 552 HARRISON GRAY OTIS : Sketch of his Life, ....5o7 Eulogy on Hamilton, . . . 559 DE WITT CLINTON : Sketch of his Life, . . . .565 Speech on the Navigation of the Mississippi, 567 AMEKICAN ELOQUENCE. JAMES OTIS. Thb subject of this memoir, descended in the fifth generation from John Otis, who came over from England at a very early period of the Colony of Massachusetts Eay, and settled at Hingham, was born on the 5th of February, 1725, in the family mansion, at Great Marshes, now West Barnstable, Massachusetts. Nothing is known of his early youth. Pursuing his classical studies under the guidance of the Eeverend Jonathan Eussel, minister of the parish in which he lived, he entered Harvard College in June, 1739, and took his first degree in 1743. " During the first two years of his college life," says his biographer, "his natural ardor and vivacity made his society much courted by the elder students, and engaged him more in amusement than in study ; but he changed his course in the junior year, and began thenceforward to give indica-tions of great talent and power of application." The only record of his having taken any part in the usual collegiate courses, is that of a syllogistic disputation, on receiving his first degree. At college, excepting his two first years, he was serious in his disposition and steady in the prosecution of his studies. When he came home during the vacations, being so devoted to his books, he was seldom seen ; and the near neighbors to his father's dwelling would sometimes only remark his return after he had been at home a fortnight. Though enveloped and marked with some of the gravity and abstraction natural to severe application, he would occasionally discover the wit and humor which formed, afterwards, striking ingredients in his character. A small party of young people being assembled one day at his father's house, when he was at home during a college vacation, he had taken a slight part in their sports, when, after much persua-sion, they induced him to play a country dance for them with his violin, on Vi'hich instrument he then practised a little. The set was made up, and after they were fairly engaged, he suddenly stopped, and holding up his fiddle and bow, exclaimed, " So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes ! " and then tossing the instrument aside, rushed into the garden, followed by the disap-pointed revellers, who were obliged to convert their intended dance into a frolicsome chase after the fugitive musician. It was the intention of Mr. Otis to qualify himself for the practice of law, but he did not engage in the appropriate studies for that purpose injmediately on leaving college. He wisely devoted nearly two years to the pursuits of general literature and science, intending thereby to establish broad and deep the foundations of his professional studies. In 1745 he commenced the study of the law, in the ofiice of Jeremiah Gridley, at that time the most eminent lawyer in the province ; and on completing those studies, he removed to Plymouth, and practised there during the years 1748 and 1749. Finding the "narrow range of country business " unsuited to Ms powers, he returned to Boston, where he soon rose to the highest position in his profession, being often called upon from other colonies and distant provinces for legal assistance and advice. 2 JAMES OTIS. Tlirough all his professional engagements, he still retained his taste for literature. In 1760, he published " The Kudiments of Latin Prosody, with a Dissertation on Letters, and the Principles of Harmony, in Poetic and Prosaic Composition, collected from the best "Writers." He also composed a similar work on Greek Prosody, which was never published, but perished with all the rest of his papers. The important events preceding and connected with the American Eevolution, attracted the attention of Mr. Otis. On the death of George the Second, in 1760, his grandson reached the throne. The conquest of Canada was completed, and rumors were widely spread that the colo-nies were to be deprived of their charters and formed into royal governments. The new king issued orders that enabled his officers of the revenue to compel the sheriffs and constables of the provinces to search for goods which it was supposed had not paid the taxes imposed by Parlia-ment. The good will of the colonists was wanted no longer to advance the prosecution of the war, and Writs of Assistance were undertaken through the influence of royal governors and some other interested friends of the Crown. The first application for those writs was made at Salem, Massachusetts. Stephen Sewall,* who was the Chief Justice of the Superior Court, expressed great doubt of the legality of such writs, and of the authority of the court to grant them. The other judges would not favor it ; and as it was an application of the Crown, that could not be dismissed without a hearing, it was postponed to the nest term of the court, to be holden at Boston, in February, 1761. The probable result of this question caused great anxiety among the mercantile portion of the community. The merchants spplied to Benjamin Pratt,t to under-take their cause, but he declined, being about to leave Boston for Kew York, of which province he had been appointed Chief Justice. They then solicited Otis, and Oxenbridge Thacher,t both of whom engaged to make their defence. The arguments in this important case, were heard in the Council Chamber of the old Town House in Boston. Chief Justice Sewall having died, Lieut. Gov. Hutchinson had been appointed as his successor, and before him the case was opened, by Mr. Gridley,§ Otis's veteran law teacher, then Attorney General. He was followed by Mr. Thacher, with great ingenuity and ability, on the side of the merchants. " But," in the language of President Adams, " Otis was a flame Stephen Sewall was the son of Major Samuel Sewall, of Salem, Mass. He was horn in December, 1702, and gradnated at Harvard College, in 1721. In 1728 he was chosen tutor in the College, and occnpied that position until 1739, when he was called to take a seat on the Bench of the Superior Court. On the death of Chief Justice Dudley, in 1752, he was ap-pointed to succeed him, though not the senior judge. He was distinguished for his honor, integrity, moderation, and great beijevolcnce. He died in December, 1760, and the loss of this impartial, high-minded magistrate, at that critical period, was rightly esteemed a great public misfortune. ~^ + Mr. Tratt affords a striking example how strong talent and energy of mind may raise one from a humble lot, and make evon calamity the foundation of prosperity. He was bred a mechanic, and met with a serious injury that prevented him from pursuing his occupatiou. He turned his mind to study, entered Harvard College, and took his first degree in 1737. He studied law, and rose to great distinction at the bar. Through the friendship of Governor Pownall, he was made Chief Justice of New York, in 1761. A cause of great difficulty, which had been many years depending, being brought up soon after he had taken his seat, gave him an opportunity of displaying the depth and acuteness of his intellect, and the sound-ness of his judgment, and secured for him at once the public respect and confidence. He wrote some political essays on the topics of the day; and a few remaining fragments in verse of his composition, a specimen of which is preserved in Knapp's Biography, prove that he possessed both taste and talent for poetry. He presided over the Courts of New York but two years, dying in 1763, at the age of fifty-five.— ruder. J Mr. Thacher was at that time one of the heads of the bar in Boston ; was a fine scholar, and possessed of much general learning. He received his degree at Harvard College, in 173S. Unassuming and affable in his deportment, of strict moral-ity, punctual in his religious duties, and with sectarian attachments, that made him, like a large majority of the people around him, look with jealousy and enmity on the meditated encroachments of the English hierarchy; he was in all these respects fitted to be popular. To these qualities he joined the purest and most ardent patriotism, and a quick perception of those in power. His opposition gave the government great uneasiness; his disposition and habits secured public confi-dence ; his moderation, learning, and ability, gave weight to His opinions, and prevented him from being considered as under the influence of others. John Adams s.ays, the advocates of the Crown "hated hiai worse than they did James Otis or Samuel Adams." Thacher published some essays on the subject of an alteration proposed by Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson relative to the value of gold and silver; also, a pamphlet against the policy of the Navigaticp Act, and the Acts of Trade, entitled, " The Sentiments ofa Bi-itUh Ame'-ican.'" He died, of a pulmonary complaint, in 1765. § Mr. Gridley was one of the principal lawyers and civilians of this time. He took his degree at Harvard College, In 1T25. He came to Boston as an assistant in the Grammar School, for some time preached occasionally ; but turning his at-tention to the law, he soon rose to distinction In the profession. He set on foot a weekly journal, in 1732, called the Ee Acarsal, in which he wrote on various literary as well as political subjects; but it lasted only one year. He was a Whig In politics, and as a representative from Brookline, in the General Court, opposed the measnrea of the ministry. He was JAMES OTIS. of fire ; witli a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical e^ ents and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, lie hurried away all before him. American independence was then and there born. The seeds of patriots and heroes, to defend the Non sine Diis animosus in/am* to defend the vigorous youth, were then and there sown. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against Writs of Assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born. In fifteen years, i. e. in 1776, he grew up to manhood and declared himself free." The princi-ples Otis educed and elaborated with such profound learning, humor and pathos, could not be subverted, and the court at the close of his speech adjourned for consideration : Chief Justice Hutchinson, at the end of the term, giving the opinion, " The Court has considered the subject of "Writs of Assistance, and can see no foundation for such a writ; but as the practice in England is not known, it has been thought best to continue the question to the nest term, that in the mean time opportunity may be given to know the result." t It was on the occasion of this masterly performance, when Otis stood forth as the bold and brilliant advocate of colonial rights, that he became famous. Although he had never before interfered in public affairs, his exertions on this single occasion secured him a commanding popularity with the friends of their country, and the terror and vengeance of her enemies ; neither of which ever deserted him. In May, 1761, he was chosen to the Legislature, in which assembly he wielded immense power. His superiority as a legislator was everywhere acknowl-edged, and in all important measures he was foremost. In 1762 he published the "Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Eepresentatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," &c., a work in which many volumes are concentrated. "Look over the Declarations of Eights and Wrongs issued by Congress in 1774," says John Adams. "Look into the Declaration of Inde-pendence, in 1776. Look into the Writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestly. Look into all the French Constitutions of government; and to cap the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Crisis, and Eights of Man ; and what can you find that is not to be found in solid substance in this Vindication of the House of Eepresentatives ? " Mr. Otis was a member of the Congress which met at New York in the month of October in the year 1765. During the same year he published " A Vindication of the British Colonies," &c. Also, "Considera-tions on behalf of the Colonists, in a Letter to a Noble Lord." It was written with spirit and ability, and was the last work that appeai-ed from his pen. On the return of Otis to the colo-nial legislature of 1766, he was appointed chairman of a committee to reply to a message of Governor Bernard, in which that officer had shown some resentment. In the answer to the message they say, " It appears to us an undue exercise of the prerogative to lay us under the necessity either of silence, or of being thought out of season in making a reply. Your Excel-lency says, that these times have been more difficult than they need have been ; which is also the opinion of this House. Those who have made them so, have reason to regret the injury they have done to a sincere and honest people." It need not be said that Otis had neither respect nor fear of the royal governor. The same year Mr. Otis brought before the legislature a proposition " for. opening a gallery of the House for such as wished to hear the debates ; thus aiding in the establishment of one of the most important principles of representative gov-ernment, the publicity of legislative proceedings. Until this time it had been customary for the legislative assemblies to sit with closed doors, and it was with gi-eat reluctance that the change was made. During the summer of the year 1767, Parliament passed an act " to raise a revenue in however, appointed Attorney-General, when Mr. Trowbridge was promoted to the Bench, and In that capacity was obliged to defend the famous " Writs of Assistance," in which he was opposed and wholly confuted by his pnpil, Otis. Ho was a Colonel of the Militia, and Grand Master of the Free Masons, and belonged to some other charitable associations. IIu died in Boston, September Tth, n67.—£liot * This motto was furnished by Sir 'William Jones for the Alliance Medal, struck in Paris to commemorate the alUanoa between France and America. + "When the next term came," says Mr. Adams, "no Judgment was pronounced,—nothing was said about Writs ol Assistance." 4 JAMES OTIS. America," imposing duties on glass, paper, painters' colors and tea ; and by virtue of another act, the king was empowered to put the customs and other duties in America, and the execution of the laws relating to trade in the colonies, under the management of resident commissioners. The news of the passage of these bills revived the popular excitement which arose at the time of the Stamp Act, which had died away on its repeal. A town meeting was held in Boston, at which Mr. Otis appeared, " contrary to his usual practice, as the adviser of cautious and mode-rate proceedings," for which moderation he was charged with being a friend to the act for appointing commissioners. To this charge he replied, "If the name and office of Commissioner General imports no more than that of a Surveyor General, no man of sense will contend about a name. The tax—the tax is undoubtedly, at present, the apparent matter of grievance." At this meeting resolutions were passed to encourage the manufactures of the province, and to abstain from the purchase of articles on which duties were imposed, thus deceiving Bernard, the governor, by the quiet character of their proceedings, which were represented as "the last efforts of an expiring faction," but at the same time becoming more firm and decided. To all the movements of the king and ministry to abridge the liberties of the colonists, Otis maintained a decided and fearless opposition. Bold and daring in the expression of his prin-ciples and opinions, he sometimes gave utterance to unguarded epithets, but never employed his gift of irony and sarcasm in a spirit of hatred towards the masses of mankind. Owing to a severe refutation of some strictures upon him, published in the public papers in 1769, he was attacked by one John Robinson, a commissioner of the customs, in a coffee-house in Boston, and in a general affray was cruelly wounded ; from the effects of which he never recovered. His wounds did not prove mortal, but his reason was shattered, and his great usefulness to his coun-try destroyed. He gained heavy damages for the assault ; but in an interval of returning reason he forgave his destroyer and remitted the judgment. He lived until May 28, 1783. On that day, during a heavy thunder-storm, he, with a greater part of the family with whom he resided, had entered the house to wait until the shower should have passed. Otis, with his cane in one hand, stood against the part of a door which opened into the front entry, and was in the act of telling the assembled group a story, when an explosion took place, which seemed to shake the solid earth, and he fell without a struggle, or an utterance, instantaneously dead. He had often expressed a desire to die as he did. In one of his lucid intervals, a few weeks previous to his death, he said to his sister: "I hope, when God Almighty, in his righteous providence, shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning." He lived to see the Independence of the Colonies, but never fully to enjoy it. " When the glorious work which he begun, Shall stand the most complete beneath the sun ; When peace shall come to crown the grand design, His eyes shall live to see the work Divine — The heavens shall then his generous ' spirit claim In storms as loud as his immortal fame ! ' Hark ! the deep thunders echo round the skies ! On wings of flame the eternal errand flies ; One chosen, charitable bolt is sped — And Otis mingles with the glorious dead." — Dawes. THE WEITS OF ASSISTANCE. Mat it Please totjh Honoes : I was de-sired by one of the Court to look into the books, and consider the question now before them concerning Writs of Assistance. I have accordingly considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your order, but like-wise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject. And I take this opportunity to declare, that whether under a fee or not, (for in such a cause as this 1 despise a fee,) I wiU to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, aU such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villany on the other, as this writ of assistance is. It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book. I THE WEITS OF ASSISTANCE. mnst therefore beg your honors' patience and attention to the whole range of an argument, that may perhaps appear nncommon in many things, as well as to points of learning that are more remote and unusual : that the whole ten-dency of my design may the more easily be per-ceived, the conclusions better descend, and the force of them be better felt. I shall not think much of my pains- in this cause, as I engaged in it from principle. I was solicited to argue this cause as Advocate General ; and because I would not, I have been charged with desertion from my office.* To this charge I can give a very sufficient answer. I renounced that office, and I argue this cause from the same principle ; and I argue it with the greater pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty, at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of his crown ; and as it is in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which in former periods of history, cost one King of England his head, and another his throne. I have taken more pains in this cause than I ever will take again, although my engaging in this and another popular cause has raised much resentment. But I think I can sincerely declare, that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for con-science' sake ; and from my soul I despise all those, whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The only principles of public conduct, that are wor-thy of a gentleman or a man, are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. These manly sentiments, in private life, make the good citizen ; in public life, the patriot and the hero. I do not say, that when Ijrought to the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I may never be brought to the mel-ancholy trial, but if ever I should, it will be then known how far I can reduce to practice principles which I know to be founded in truth. In the mean time I will proceed to the subject of this writ. Your honors will find in the old books con-cerning the office of a justice of the peace, pre-cedents of general warrants to search suspected houses. But in more modern books, you will find only special warrants to search such and such houses, specially named, in which the complainant has before sworn that he suspects his goods are concealed ; and will find it ad-judged, that special warrants only are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the writ prayed for in this petition, being general, is illegal. It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer. * Otis had lately been occupying the office of Advocate General of the Crown, and had resigned because "he be-lieved these writs to be illegal and tyrannical," and would not prostitute his office to the support of an oppressive act. I say I admit that special -writa of assistance, to search special places, may be granted to certain persons on oath ; but I deny that the writ now prayed for can be granted, for I beg leave to make some observations on the writ itself, be-fore I proceed to other acts of Parliament. In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed " to all and singular justices, sherifis, constables, and all other officers and subjects ; " so that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the king's dominions. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant ; if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, may con-trol, imprison, or murder any one within the realm. In the next place, it is perpetual, there is no retnrn. A man is accountable to no per-son for his doings. Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the archangel shall excite difierent emotions in his soul. In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, &c., at will, and command all to assist him. Fourthly, by this writ, not only depu-ties, &c., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us ; to be the servant of servants, the most despica-ble of God's creation ? Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the free-dom of one's house. A man's house is his castle ; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally an-nihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please ; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and every thing in their way : and whe-ther they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient. This wanton exer-cise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain. I will mention some facts. Mr. Pew had one of these writs, and when Mr. Ware succeeded him, he endorsed this writ over to Mr. Ware : so that, these writs are negotia-ble from one officer to another ; and so your honors have no opportunity of judging the persons to whom this vast power is delegated. Another instance is this : Mr. Justice Walley had called this same Mr. Ware before him, by a constable, to answer for a breach of tlie sab-bath- day acts, or that of profane swearing. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Ware asked him if he had done. He replied. Yes. Well then, said Mr. Ware, I will show you a little of my power. I command you to permit me to search your house for uncustomed goods; and went on to search the house from the garret to the cellar ; and then served the constable in the same manner ! But to show another absurdity in this writ, if it should be established, I insist upon it every person, by the 14th Charles Se-cond, has this power as well as the custom-house oncers. The words are, "it shall be 6 JAMES OTIS. lawful for any person or persons authorized, &c." What a scene does this open! Every-man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wan-tonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defence ; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in tumult and in blood. The summary of this speech can be best, and can now be only given in the words of John Adams, who divides it into five parts : 1. "He began with an exordium, containing an apology for his resignation of the ofiice of Advocate General in the Court ofAdmiralty ; and for his appearance in that cause in opposition to the Crown, and in favor of the town of Bos-ton, and the merchants of Boston and Salem. 2. "A dissertation on the rights of man in a state of nature. He asserted that every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law but the law written on his heart, and revealed to him by his Maker, in the constitution of his nature, and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestable. The club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defence, was his own. His bow and arrow were his own ; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beast, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel, or a smelt, or a sculpion, it was his property. In short, he sported upon this topic with so much wit and humor, and at the same time with so much in-disputable truth and reason, that he was not less entertaining than instructive. He asserted that these rights were inherent and inalienable. That they never could be surrendered or alien-ated, but by idiots or madmen, and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were void, and not obliga-tory, by all the laws of God and man. Nor were the poor negroes forgotten. Not a Qua-ker in Philadelphia, or Mr. Jefferson in Vir-ginia, ever asserted the rights of negroes in stronger terms. Young as I was, and ignorant as I was, I shuddered at the doctrine he taught ; and I have all my life shuddered, and still shudder, at the consequences that may be drawn from such premises. Shall we say, that the rights of masters and servants clash, and can be decided only by force ? I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! but who shall decide how fast or how slowly these abolitions shall be made ? 3. "From individual independence he pro-ceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say that men were gregarious animals, like wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were social animals by nature ; that there were natural sympathies, and above all, the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and defence. And this must have happened before any formal covenant, by express words or signs, was concluded. When general councils and deliberations commenced, the objects could be no other than the mutual defence and secu-rity of. every individual for his life, his liberty, and his property. To suppose them to have surrendered these in any other way than by equal rules and general consent, was to suppose them idiots or madmen, whose acts were never binding. To suppose them surprised by fraud, or compelled by force into any other compact, such fraud and such force could confer no obli-gation. Every man had a right to trample it under foot whenever he pleased. In short, he asserted these rights to be derived only from nature, and the author of nature; that they were inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or stipu-lations, which man could devise. 4. " These principles and these rights were wrought into the English constitution, as fun-damental laws. And under this head he went back to the old Saxon laws, and to Magna Charta, and the fifty confirmations of it in Par-liament, and the executions ordained against the violators of it, and the national vengeance which had been taken on them from time to time, down to the Jameses and Charleses ; and to the position of rights and the bill of rights, and the revolution. He asserted, that the se-curity of these rights to life, liberty and prop-erty, had been the object of all those struggles against arbitrary power, temporal and spiritual, civil and political, military and ecclesiastical, in every age. He asserted, that our ancestors, as British subjects, and we, their descendants, as British subjects, were entitled to all those rights, by the British constitution, as well as by the law of nature, and our provincial char-acter, as much as any inhabitant of London or Bristol, or any part of England ; and were not to be cheated out of them by any phantom of 'virtual representation,' or any other fiction of law or politics, or any monkish trick of de-ceit and hypocrisy. 5. "He then examined the acts of trade, one by one, and demonstrated, that if they were considered as revenue laws, they destroyed aU our security of property, liberty, and life, every right of nature, and the English constitution, and the charter of the province. Here he considered the distinction between ' external and internal taxes,' at that time a popular and commonplace distinction. But he asserted that there was no such distinction in theory, or upon any principle but 'necessity.' The necessity that the commerce of the empire should be under one direction, was obvious. The Americans had been so sensible of this ne-cessity, that they had connived at the distinc-tion between external and internal taxes, and had submitted to the acts of trade as regula-tions of commerce, but never as taxations, or THE STUDY OF THE LAW. revenue laws. Nor had the British govern-ment, till now, ever dared to attempt to en-force them as taxations or revenue laws. They had lain dormant in that character for a cen-tury almost. The navigation act he allowed to be binding upon us, because we had consented to it by our own legislature. Here he gave a history of the navigation act of the first of Charles II., a plagiarism from Oliver Crom-well. This act had lain dormant for fifteen years. In 1675, after repeated letters and or-ders from the king. Governor Leverett very candidly informs his majesty that the law had not been executed, because it was thought un-constitutional ; Parliament not having authority over us." THE STUDY OF THE LAW. I shall always lament that I did not take a year or two further for more general inquiries in the arts and sciences before I sat down to the laborious study of the laws of my country. Early and short clerkships and a premature rushing into practice, without a competent knowledge in the theory of law, have blasted the hopes of (and ruined the expectations formed by the parents of) most of the students in the profession, who have fallen within my ob-servation for these ten or fifteen years past. I hold it to be of vast importance that a young man should be able to make some eclat at his opening, which it is in vain to expect from one under twenty-five : missing of this is very apt to discourage and dispirit him, and what is of worse consequence, may prevent the appli-cation of clients ever after. It has been ob-served before I was born, if a man don't obtain a character in any profession soon after his first appearance, he hardly will ever obtain one. The bulk of mankind, I need not inform you, who have conversed with, studied and found many of them out, are a gaping crew, and like little children and all other gazing creatures, won't look long upon one object which gives them pleasure ; much less wiU they seek for en-tertainment where they have been twice or thrice disappointed. The late eminent Mr. John Eeed, who, by some, has been perhaps justly esteemed the greatest common lawyer this continent ever saw, was, you know, many years a clergyman, and had attained the age of forty before he began the practice, if not before he began the study, of the law. Sir Peter King, formerly Lord High Chancellor of Eng-land, kept a grocer's shop till he was turned of thirty, then fell into an acquaintance with the immortal John Locke, who discovered a genius in him, advised him to books and assisted in his education ; after which he took to the study of the common law, and finally attained to the highest place to which his royal master could advance a lawyer. I think I have been told the Lord Chief Justice Pemberton, or some one of the Chief Justices of England, was a bankrupt, and in the Fleet prison for debt, before he even dreamed of being a lawyer. I mention these instances, not as arguments to prove it would be most eligible to stay till thirty or forty, be-fore a man begins the study of a profession he is to live by ; but this inference I think very fairly follows, that those gentlemen availed themselves much of the ripeness of their judg-ments when they began this study, and made much swifter progress than a young man of twenty with all the genius in the world could do ; or they would have been approaching su-perannuation before they would be equipped with a suflicient degree of learning once to give hope for the success they found, and then such hope would vanish, unless they could get a new lease of life and understanding.* * This extract is taken from a letter addressed by James Otis to his father, in reiference to the legal education of his younger brother, Samuel Allyne Otis, who, in later life, be-came Secretary of the Senate of the United States. PATRICK HENRY. Tms distinguished " orator of nature," was born at Studley, in the county of Hanover, and Colony of Virginia, His father emigrated to America, from Aberdeen, Scotland, in quest of fortune, sometimfi prior to 1730 ; and his mother, who belonged to the family of Winstons, was a native of the county in which he was born. On the maternal side, he seems to have belonged to an oratorical race. His uncle, William Winston, is said to have been highly gifted with that peculiar cast of eloquence for which Mr. Henry became afterwards so justly celebrated. An anecdote of this gentleman's rhetorical powers is recorded by the eloquent biographer of Mr. Henry. During the French and Indian war, soon after the defeat of the unfortunate Braddock, when the militia were marched to the frontiers of Virginia against the enemy, William Win-ston was the lieutenant of a company. The men, who were indifferently clothed, without tents, and exposed to the rigor and inclemency of the weather, discovered great aversion to the ser-vice, and were anxious and even clamorous to return to their families ; when Winston, mounting a stump, addressed them with such keenness of invective, and declaimed with such force of eloquence, on liberty and patriotism, that when he concluded, the general cry was, " Let us march on ; lead us against the enemy ! " and they were now willing and anxious to encounter all those difficulties and dangers which, but a few moments before, had almost produced a mutiny. The youth of Mr. Henry gave no presage of his future greatness. He was idle and indolent ; playing truant from his school, and spending the greater portion of his time in the sports of the field ; often sitting whole days upon the margin of some stream, waiting for a bite, or even " one glorious nibble." The lamentable effects of this idleness clung to him through life. After pass-ing one year as merchant's clerk, young Henry, at the age of sixteen, was established in trade by his father, but " through laziness, the love of music, the charms of the chase, and a readiness to trust every one,'''' he soon became bankrupt. One advantage, however, he derived from this experiment ; it was in the study of humar, nature. AH his customers underwent his scru-tiny, not with reference to their integrity or solvency, but in relation to the structure of their minds and opinions. In this school, it is the opinion of his biographer, Mr. Henry was prepared for his future life. " For those continual efforts to render himself intelligible to his plain and unlettered hearers, on subjects entirely new to them, taught him that clear and simple style which forms the best vehicle of thought to a popular assembly ; while his attempts to interest and affect them, in order that he might hear from them the echo of nature's voice, instructed him in those topics of persuasion by which men are most certainly to be moved, and in the kind of imagery and structure of language which were the best fitted to strike and agitate their hearts." At the early age of eighteen, Mr. Henry was married to Miss Shelton, the daughter of a poor but honest farmer in the neighborhood of his birthplace. The young couple settled on a small farm, and " with the assistance of one or two slaves, Mr. Henry had to delve the earth for his subsistence." His want of agricultural. skill and natural aversion to aU kinds of systematic labor, closed his career as a farmer in two years, when he again commenced and again failed in K -^ ^'^S ir ^ JachruOTh II Jt IJ A^ppleton & C* patkick: henry, g mercantile pursuits. Unsuccessful in every thing he had attempted to procure himself and his family subsistence, he, as a last effort, determined to make a trial of the law. To the study of that profession, " which is said to require the lucubrations of twenty years, Mr. Henry devoted not more than six weeks ; " and at the age of twenty-four he was admitted to the bar. His practice for the first three or four years yielded him but a very scanty return, during which time he performed the duties of an assistant to his father-in-law at a country inn. The celebrated controversy,* in 1763, between the clergy and the legislature of Virginia, touching the stipend of the former, was the occasion on which Mr. Henry's genius first broke forth. "On this first trial of his strength," says Mr. Wirt, "he rose very awkwardly, and fal-tered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a commencement ; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other ; and his father is described as having almost sunk with confusion from his seat. But these feelings were of short duration, and soon gave place to others, of a very different character. For, now were these wonderful faculties which he possessed for the first time developed; and now was first witnessed that mysterious and almost supernatural transformation of appearance, which the fire of his own elo-quence never failed to work in him. For, as his mind rolled along and began to glow from its own action, all the exunios of the clown seemed to shed themselves spontaneously. His attitude, by degrees, became erect and lofty. The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it had never before exhibited. There was a lightning in his eyes which seemed to rive the spectator. His action became graceful, bold, and commanding ; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar charm, a magic, of which any one who ever heard him will speak as soon as he is named, but of which no one can give any adequate description. They can only say that it struck upon the ear and upon the heart, in a manner which language cannot tell. Add to aU these his wonder-working fancy, and the peculiar phraseology in which he clothed its images; for he painted to the heart with a force that almost petrified it. In the language of those who heard him on this occasion, ' he made their blood run cold, and their hair to rise on end.' " It will not be difficult for any one who ever heard this most extraordinary man, to believe the whole account of this transaction which is given by his surviving hearers ; and from their ac-count, the court-house of Hanover County must have exhibited, on this occasion, a scene as pic-turesque as has ever been witnessed in real life. They say that the people, whose countenance had fallen as he arose, had heard but a very few sentences before they began to look up ; then to look at each other with surprise, as if doubting the evidence of their own senses ; then, at-tracted by some strong gesture, struck by some majestic attitude, fascinated by the spell of his eye, the charm of his emphasis, and the varied and commanding expression of his countenance, they could look away no more. In less than twenty minutes they might be seen in every part of the house, on every bench, in every window, stooping forward from their stands, in death-like silence ; their features fixed in amazement and awe ; aU their senses listening and riveted upon the speaker, as if to catch the last strain of some heavenly visitant. The mockery of the clergy was soon turned into alarm ; their triumph into confusion and despair ; and at one burst of his rapid and overwhelming invective, they fled from the bench in precipitation and terror. As for the father, such was his surprise, such his amazement, such his rapture, that, forgetting where he was, and the character which he was filling, tears of ecstasy streamed down his cheeks, without the power or inclination to repress them. The jury seem to have been completely be-wildered ; for, thoughtless even of the admitted right of the plaintiff, they had scarcely left the bar when they returned with a verdict of one penny damages. A motion was made for a new trial ; but the court, too, had now lost the equipoise of their judgment, and overruled the motion by a unanimous vote. The verdict and judgment overruling the motion, were followed by re-doubled acclamations from within and without the house. The people, who had with difficulty kept their hands off their champion, from the moment of closing his harangue, no sooner saw 'the fate of the cause finally sealed, than they seized him at the bar, and in spite of his own ex-ertions, and the continued cry of ' order ' from the sheriffs and the court, they bore him out of The points in ttia controversy are lucidly laid down in Wirt's Life of Henry. 10 PATKICK HENKY. the coTirt-liouse, and raising him on their shoulders, carried him about the yard, in a kind of electioneering triumph." His success in the "parson's cause" introduced him at once to an extensive practice; but he never could confine himself to the arduous studies necessary for a thorough knowledge of the law: the consequence was, on questions merely legal his inferiors in talents frequently em-barrassed him, and he was required to use all the resources of his master-mind to maintain the position he had reached. In 1765, as a member of the House of Burgesses, Mr. Henry in-troduced his resolutions against the Stamp Act, which proved the opening of the American Revolution in the colony of Virginia. It was in the midst of the debate upon those resolutions, that he " exclaimed, in a voice of thunder and with the look of a god, ' Csesar had his Brutus — Charles the First his Cromwell—and George the Third—('Treason!' cried the Speaker: ' treason ! treason ! ' echoed from every part of the house. Henry faltered not for an instant, but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire, finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) — may profit hy their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." * After passing several years successfully upon the legislative floor, Mr. Henry returned to the practice of his profession. On the 4th of September, 17T4, the first Congress met in Carpenter's Hall, at Philadelphia. This assembly was composed of the most eminent men of the several colonies, on the wisdom of whose councils was staked the liberties of the colonists and their posterity. The first meeting is described as "awfully solemn. The object which had called them together was of incal-culable magnitude." After the organization, in the midst of a deep and death-like silence, every member reluctant to open a business so fearfully momentous, " Mr. Henry rose slowly, as if borne down by the weight of the subject, and, after faltering, according to his habit, through a most impressive exordium, he launched gradually into a recital of the colonial wrongs. Eising, as he advanced, with the grandeur of his subject, and glowing at length with all the majesty and expectation of the occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal man. There was no rant, no rhapsody, no labor of the understanding, no straining of the voice, no confusion of the utterance. His countenance was erect, his eye steady, his action noble, his enunciation clear and firm, his mind poised on its centre, his views of his subject comprehensive and great, and his imagination corruscating with a magnificence and a variety which struck even that assembly with amazement and awe. He sat down amid murmurs of astonishment and applause ; and as he had been before proclaimed the greatest orator of Virginia, he was now, on every hand, admitted to be the first orator of America." No report of this speech has been preserved. That Congress adjourned in October, and Mr. Henry returned to his home. On the 20th of March following (1775), the Virginia Convention, which had met the previous year at "Williams-bnrgh, then the capital of the State, convened at Eichmond. Of this body Mr. Henry was a member. Although the colonies were then laboring under severe grievances, and at the same time were insisting with great firmness upon their constitutional rights, yet they gave the most explicit and solemn pledge of their faith and true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Third, avowed to support him with their lives and fortunes, and were ardent in their wishes for a return of that friendly intercourse from which the colonies had derived so much benefit. These were the sentiments held by those eminent statesmen and patriots on the opening of that convention ; but with Mr. Henry it was different. In his judgment, all hopes of a reconciliation were gone. Firm in this opinion, he introduced his celebrated resolutions advocating prepara-tion for a military defence of the colony. Those resolutions he sustained in a powerful speech, and they were adopted ; after which a committee, of which Mr. Henry and George Washington were members, was appointed to prepare and report a plan to carry into effect the meaning of the resolutions. After the report was made and the plan adopted, the convention adjourned. On the 20th of April, 1775, in the dead of the night. Lord Dunmore sent one of his naval captains, with a body of marines, into the town of "Williamsburgh, carried off twenty barrels of * A very curious parallel to this scene occurred In the Legislature of Massachusetts, three years prior to this, on the occasion of the presentation of Otls's remonstrance against the governor and council's mating or increasing estahlishments without the consent of the House. A thrilling account of those proceedings is given in Tudor's Life of James Otis. PATEICK HENEY. ll powder from the public magazine, and placed them on board the armed schooner Magdalen, lying at anchor in James Eiver. The people of the town on learning of the affair early the next morning, became highly exasperated ; a considerable body of them taking up arms, determined to compel a restoration of the powder. The council convened, and addressed a letter to Lord Dunmore, asking for its return ; but it was not until the 2d day of May, when Mr. Henry, hav-ing convened the Independent company of Hanover, by request, addressed them, and being appointed their leader, marched against his lordship, and obtained " three hundred and thirty pounds," the estimated value of the powder. " Thus, the same man, whose genius had in the year 1765 given the first political impulse to the Revolution, had now the additional honor of heading the first military movement in Virginia, in support of the same cause." On the meet-ing of the Virginia convention in 1776, after the declaration of rights was published, and a plan of government established, Mr. Henry was elected governor of the colony. His career in this ofiBce is not marked by any extraordinary operations of his own. Lord Dunmore had evacuated the territory of the colony, and the military operations against the British Crown, which had been carried on during the previous year, were brought to a close. In 1777, and again in 1778, Mr. Henry was re-elected to the office of governor ; declining a third re-election in 1779, which had been tendered him by the Assembly. The first wife of Mr. Henry having died in the year 1775, he sold the farm on which he had been residing in Hanover county, and purchased several thousand acres of valuable land in the county of Henry ; a county which had been erected during his administration as governor ; and which had taken its name from him, as did afterwards its neighboring county of Patrick. In 1777 he married Dorothea, the daughter of Mr. Nathaniel W. Dandridge, with whom he retired to his new estate ; and there resumed the practice of the law, confining himself mainly to the duties of counsellor and advocate, and leaving the technical duties to the care of his junior associates. Shortly after the termination of Mr. Henry's office as governor, he was elected to the State Assembly, in which body he remained until the close of his active life ; taking a prominent part in its proceedings, and distinguishing himself by his liberality of feeling and soundness of judg-ment, not less than by the superiority of his powers in debate. On the close of the Revolution, he proposed in the Assembly, that the loyalists who had left the State during the war, should be permitted to return. This proposition was resisted, but through the influence of Mr. Henry's " overwhelming eloquence," was finally adopted. In the same high-toned spirit he supported and carried, although vigorously opposed, a proposal for removing the restraints upon British commerce. " Why should we fetter commerce ? " said he ; "a man in chains droops and bows to the earth ; his spirits are broken ; but let him twist the fetters from his legs and he will stand upright. Fetter not Commerce, Sir ; let her be as free as air. She will range the whole creation, and return on the wings of the four winds of heaven to bless the land with plenty." In the year 1784, Mr. Henry introduced into the Assembly, a " bill for the encouragement of marriages with the Indians." The frontier settlements had been subject to the continual depredations of the Indians. Treaties were of no avail ; and in this bill, Mr. Henry suggested, as a means to prevent these troubles, intermarriages of the whites and Indians ; and held out pecuniary bounty, to be repeated at the birth of every child of such marriages ; exemption from taxes, and the free use of an educational institution, to be established at the expense of the State. This bill was rejected. In November of the same year, Mr. Henry was again elected Governor of Virginia ; in which oflSce he remained until 1786, when he was compelled by poverty to resign his office, and again return to the practice of the law. However, he did not remain long out of public life. In 1788 he was a member of the convention of Virginia, which adopted the new federal constitution. In this Assembly he opposed the adoption ; because, he contended, it consolidated the States into one government, thereby destroying their individual sovereignty. His speeches on this occasion surpassed all his former efforts ; and they operated so powerfully that but a small majority voted for the new constitution. Declining a re-election to the Assembly in 1791, Mr. Henry retired from public life. Four years after President "Washington offered him the important station of Secretary of State. This !ie declined, preferring to remain in retirement. Again, in 1796, he was elected Governor of 12 PATEICK HEFEY. the State ; this he also declined. In the year 1797 his health began to fail, and those energies which had enabled him to withstand the power of Great Britain, and urge onward the glorious Ee-volution, existed no longer in their original force. The uncertainty of the political issues at this period bore sorely and heavily upon Mr. Henry's sinking spirits. The clash of opposing parties agonized his mind. He was alarmed at the hideous scenes of the revolution then enacting in France, and apprehensive that these scenes were about being enacted over again in his own country, "In a mind thus prepared," says his biographer, "the strong and animated resolutions of the Virginia Assembly in 1798, in relation to the alien and sedition laws, conjured up the most frightful visions of civil war, disunion, blood and anarchy ; and under the impulse of these phantoms, to make what Jis considered a virtuous effort for his country, he presented himself in Charlotte county, as a candidate for the House of Delegates, at the spring election of 1799." On the day of the election, before the polls were opened, he addressed the people of the county to the following effect : " He told them that the late proceedings of the Virginia Assembly had filled him with apprehension and alarm ; that they had planted thorns upon his pillow ; that they had drawn him from that happy retirement which it had pleased a bountiful Providence to bestow, and in which he had hoped to pass, in quiet, the remainder of his days ; that the State had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the constitution ; and in daring to pro-nounce upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her jurisdiction in a manner not war-ranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming to every considerate man ; that such opposition, on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the general government, must beget their enforcement by military power ; that this would probably produce civil war ; civU war, foreign alliances ; and that foreign alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers called ui. He conjured the people to pause and consider well, before they rushed into such a desperate condition, from which there could be no retreat. He painted to their imaginations, Washington, at the head of a numerous and well-appointed army, inflicting upon them military execution : 'and where (he asked) are our resources to meet such a conflict ? Where is the citizen of America who will dare to lift his hand against the father of his country ? ' A drunken man in the crowd threw up his arm, and exclaimed that ' he dared to do it.' ' No,' answered Mr. Henry, rising aloft in all his majesty: ^youdare not do it: in such a parricidal attempt, the steel would drop from your nerveless arm!'' Mr. Henry, proceeding in his address to the people, asked, 'whether the county of Charlotte would have any authority to dispute an obedience to the laws of Vir-ginia ; and he pronounced Virginia to be to the Union, what the county of Charlotte was to her. " Having denied the right of a State to decide upon the constitutionality of federal laws, he added, that perhaps it might be necessary to say something of the merits of the laws in question. His private opinion was, that they were ' good and proper.'' But, whatever might be their merits, it belonged to the people, who held the reins over the head of Congress, and to them alone, to say whether they were acceptable or otherwise, to Virginians ; and that this must be done by way of petition. That Congress were as much our representatives as the Assembly, and had as good a right to our confidence. He had seen, with regret, the unlimited power over the purse and sword consigned to the general government ; but that he had been overruled, and it was now necessary to submit to the constitutional exercise of that power. 'If,' said he, 'I am asked what is to be done, when a people feel themselves intolerably oppressed, my answer is ready : Overturn the government. But do not, I beseech you, carry matters to this length, with-out provocation. Wait at least until some infringement is made upon your rights, and which cannot otherwise be redressed ; for if ever you recur to another change, you may bid adieu for ever to representative government. You can never exchange the present government but for a monarchy. If the administration have done wrong, let us all go wrong together rather than split into factions, which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs. Let us pre-serve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare to in-vade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.' He concluded, by declaring his design to exert himself in the endeavor to allay the heart-burnings and jeal-ousies which had been fomented, in the State legislature ; and he fervently prayed, if U was THE FEDEEAL CONSTITUTION. 13 deemed unworthy to effect it, that it might be reserved to some other aad abler hand, to extend this blessing over the community." * This was the last effort of Mr. Henry's eloquence. The polls were opened after he had concluded this speech, and he was elected : but -ho never took his seat. His health had been declining gra-dually for two years, when, on the sixth day of June, 1799, he died, full of honors—as a states-man, orator and patriot, unsurpassed and uneclipsed. THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.t The Preamble and the two first sections of the first article of the Constitution being under consideration, Mr. Henry thus addressed the convention 4 Mr. Chaiemah : The public mind, as well as my own, is extremely uneasy at the proposed change of government. Give me leave to form one of the number of those, who wish to be thoroughly acquainted with the reasons of this perilous and uneasy situation, and why we are brought hither to decide on this great national question. I consider myself as the servant of the people of this commonwealth, as a sentinel over their rights, liberty, and happiness. I represent their feelings when I say, that they are exceedingly uneasy, being brought from that state of full security, which they enjoy, to * Experience had taught Mr. Henry that in opposing tho adoption of the constitution, he had mistaken the source of public danger ; that the power of the states was yet too great, in times of discord and war, for the power of the Union. The constitution, moreover, was the law of the land, and as such, he had sworn to obey it. He had seen it administered conscientiously, and for the good of the whole; he had, since Its adoption, never leagued himself with the factions which embarrassed its operations. With parties, as such, he had no connection, and in this crisis he could come forward with clean bands tu its support. — Administrations of Washington amd Adorns ; Tuckefs Life ofJefferson. t So general was the conviction that public welfare re-quired a government of more extensive powers than those vested in the general government by the articles of confed-eration, that in May, 1787, a convention composed of dele-gates from all the States in the Union, with the exception of Ehode Island, assembled at Philadelphia, to take the subject under consideration. This convention continued its sessions with closed doors until the seventeenth of the following September, when the Federal Constitution was promulgated. The convention resolved, "That the constitution be laid be-fore the United States, in Congress assembled, and that it is the opinion of this convention that it should afterwards be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, for their assent and ratification; " and in conformity with this recommendation. Congress, on the twenty-eighth of the same month, p.issed a resolution di-recting that tho constitution should be submitted to conven-tions, to be assembled in the several States of the Union. The conventions subsequently assembled, and the expediency of adopting the constitution was ably and eloquently dis-cussed. i This speech was delivered in the Virginia convention, on the fourth of June, 1783. the present delusive appearance of things. Be-fore the meeting of the late Federal convention at Philadelphia, a general peace, and an univer-sal tranquillity prevailed in this country, and the minds of our citizens were at perfect re-pose; but since that period, they are exceed-ingly uneasy and disquieted. When I wished for an appointment to this convention, my mind was extremely agitated for the situation of pub-lic affairs. I conceive the republic to be in ex-treme danger. If our situation be thus uneasy, whence has arisen this fearful jeopardy ? It arises from this fatal system ; it arises from a proposal to cliange our government—a propo-sal that goes to the utter annihilation of the most solemn engagements of the States—a pro-posal of establishing nine States into a confede-racy, to the eventual exclusion of four States. It goes to the annihilation of those solemn treaties we have formed with foreign nations. The present circumstances of France, the good offices rendered us by that kingdom, require our most faithful and most punctual adherence to our treaty with her. We are in alliance with the Spaniards, the Dutch, the Prussians: those treaties bound us as thirteen St.ues, confede-rated together. Yet here is a proposal to sever that confederacy. Is it possible that we shall abandon all our treaties and national engage-ments? And for what? I expected to have heard the reasons of an event so unexpected to my mind, and many others. Was our civil polity, or public justice, endangered or sapped ? Was the real existence of the country threat-ened, or was this preceded by a mournful pro-gression of events? This proposal of altering our federal government is of a most alarming nature : make the best of this new government —say it is composed of any thing but inspira-tion— you ought to be extremely cautious, watchful, jealous of your liberty; for, instead of securing your rights, you may lose them for ever. If a wrong step be now made, the re-public may be lost for ever. If this new govern-ment will not come up to the expectation of the people, and they should be disappointed, their liberty will be lost, and tyranny must and will arise. I repeat it again, and I beg gentlemen to consider, that a wrong step, made now, wUl plunge us into misery, and our republic will be lost. It will be necessary for this convention to have a faithful historical detail of the facts that preceded the session of the federal conven- 14 PATEIGK HENRY. tion, and the reasons that actuated its members in proposing an entire alteration of government —and to demonstrate the dangers that awaited ns. If they were of such awful magnitude as to warrant a proposal so extremely perilous as this, I must assert that this convention has an absolute right to a thorough discovery of every circumstance relative to this great event. And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who composed a part of the late federal convention. I am sure they were fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated government, instead of a confede-ration. That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear ; and the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very striking. I have the highest veneration for those gentle-men ; but, sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, " We, the People ? " My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious so-licitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, who authorized them to speak the language of, "We, the People," instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of a confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consoli-dated national government of the people of all the States. I have the highest respect for those gentlemen who formed the convention; and were some of them not here, I would express some testimonial of esteem for them. America had on a former occasion put the utmost confi-dence in them; a confidence which was well plaped; and I am sure, sir, I would give up any thing to them ; I would cheerfully confide in them as my representatives. But, sir, on this great occasion, I would demand the cause of their conduct. Even from that illustrious man, who saved us by his valor, I would have a reason for his conduct ; that liberty which he has given us by his valor, tells me to ask this reason, and sure I am, were he here, he would give us that reason : but there are other gentle-men here, who can give us this information. The people gave them no power to use their name. That they exceeded their power is per-fectly clear. It is not mere curiosity that actu-ates me ; I wish to hear the real, actual, exist-ing danger, which should lead us to take those steps so dangerous in my conception. Disor-ders have arisen in other parts of America, but here, sir, no dangers, no insurrection or tumult, has happened ; every thing has been calm and tranquil. But notwithstanding this, we are wandering on the great ocean of human aifairs. I see no landmark to guide us. We are run-ning we know not whither. Difference in opinion has gone to a degree of inflammatory resentment, in different parts of the country, which has been occasioned by this perilous in-novation. The federal convention ought to have amended the old system; for this purpose they were solely delegated: the object of their mission extended to no other consideration. You must therefore forgive the solicitation of one unworthy member, to know what danger could have arisen under the present confedera-tion, and what are the causes of this proposal to change our government. This inquiry was answered by an eloquent and powerful speech from Mr. Eandolph ; and the debate passed into other hands until the next day, when Mr. Henry continued : Me. Chaieman: I am much obliged to the very worthy gentleman* for his encomium. I wish I were possessed of talents, or possessed of any thing, that might enable me to elucidate this great subject. I am not free from suspi-cion : I am apt to entertain doubts : I rose yes-terday to ask a question, which arose in my own mind. When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious : the fate of this question and of Amer-ica, may depend on this. Have they said, We, the States ? Have they made a proposal of a compact between States? If they had, this would be a confederation : it is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The whole question turns, sir, on that poor little thing — the expression. We, the People, instead of the States of America. I need not take much pains to show, that the principles of this sys-tem are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. Is this a monarchy, like England a compact between prince and people; with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter ? Is this a confederacy, like Holland —an association of a number of independent States, each of which retains its individual sov-ereignty ? It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely. Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transi-tion, from a confederacy to a consolidated gov-ernment. We have no detail of those great considerations which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we should recur to a government of this kind. Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is as radical, if in this transi-tion, our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the States relinquished. And cannot we plainly see that this is actually * General Lee, of Westmoreland, speaking in reference to Mr. Ilenry's opening speech, had remarked to the conven-tion, " I feel every power of my mind moved by the lan-guage of the honorable gentleman yesterday. The echit and brilliancy which have distinguished that gentleman, the honors witli which he has been dignified, and the brilliant talents which he has so ofte.i displayed, have attracted my respect and attention. On so important an occasion, and be-fore BO respectable a body, I expected a new display of his powers of oratory; but, instead of proceeding to investigate the merits of the new plan of government, the icorthy char ader informs us of horrors which he felt, of apprehensions in his mind, which made him tremblingly fearful of the fate of the commonwealth. Mr. Chairman, was it proper to appeal to the /ear of this House? The question before ns belongs to the judgment of this House. I trust he ia come to jttdge, and not to alarm." THE FEDEEAL CONSTITUTION. 16 the case ? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of free-men? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans? It is said eight States have adopted this plan. I de-clare that if twelve States and a half had adopt-ed it, I would, with manly firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured ; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government. Having premised these things, I shall, with the aid of my judgment and infor-mation, which I confess are not extensive, go into the discussion of this system more minute-ly. Is it necessary for your liberty, that you should abandon those great rights by the adop-tion of this system ? Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury, and the liberty of the press, necessary for your liberty ? Will the abandon-ment of your most sacred rights, tend to the security of your liberty ? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings—give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else. But I am fearful I have lived long enough to become an old-fashioned fellow. Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man, may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned : if so, I am contented to be so. I say, the time has been when every pulse of my heart beat for American liberty, and which, I believe, had a counterpart in the breast of every true American. But suspicions have gone forth—suspicions of my integrity. It has been publicly reported that my professions are not real. Twenty-three years ago was I sup-posed a traitor to my country : I was then said to be a bane of sedition, because I supported the rights of my country : I may be thought suspicious, when I say our privileges and rights are in danger : but, sir, a number of the people of this country are weak enough to think these things are too true. I am happy to find that the gentlemen on the other side, declare they are groundless : but, sir, suspicion is a virtue, as long as its object is the preservation of the public good, and as long as it stays within pro-per bounds : should it fall on me, I am content-ed : conscious rectitude is a powerful consola-tion: I trust there are many who think my professions for the public good to be real. Let your suspicion look to both sides: there are many on the other side, who, possibly, may have been persuaded of the necessity of these measures, which I conceive to be dangerous to your liberty. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who ap-proaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it, but downright force. When-ever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. I am answered by gentlemen, that though I may speak of terrors, yet the fact is, that we are surrounded by none of the dangers I apprehend. I conceive this new government to be one of those dangers : it has produced those horrors, which distress many of our best citizens. We are come hither to preserve the poor commonwealth of Virginia, if it can be possibly done : something must be done to pre-serve your liberty and mine. The confedera-tion, this same despised government, merits, in my opinion, the highest encomium : it carried us through a long and dangerous war : it ren-dered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful nation : it has secured us a territory greater than any European monarch possesses: and shall a government which has been thus strong and vigorous, be accused of imbecility, and abandoned for want of energy ? Consider what you are about to do, before you part with this government. Take longer time in reckon-ing things : revolutions like this have happened in almost every country in Europe : similar ex-amples are to be found in ancient Greece and ancient Kome : instances of the people losing their liberty by their own carelessness and the ambition of a few. We are cautioned by the honorable gentleman who presides, against fac-tion and turbulence. I acknowledge that licen-tiousness is dangerous, and that it ought to be provided against : I acknowledge also the new form of government may eftectually prevent it : yet, there is another thing it will as eflfect-ually do : it will oppress and ruin the people. There are sufiicient guards placed against sedi-tion and licentiousness: for when power is given to this government to suppress these, or, for any other purpose, the language it assumes is clear, express, and unequivocal; but when this constitution speaks of privileges, there is an ambiguity, sir, a fatal ambiguity—an ambi-guity which is very astonishing. In the clause under consideration, there is the strangest lan-guage that I can conceive. I mean, when it says, that there shall not be more representa-tives than one for every 30,000. Now, sir, how ea'sy is it to evade this privilege ? " The num-ber shall not exceed one for every 30,000." This may be satisfied by one representative from each State. Let our numbers be ever so great, this immense continent may, by this artful expression, be reduced to have but thir-teen representatives. I confess this construc-tion is not natural ; but tlie ambiguity of the expression lays a good ground for a quarrel. Why was it not clearly and unequivocally ex-pressed, that they should be entitled to have one for every 30,000? This would have obvi-ated all disputes; and was this difiicult to be done? What is the inference ? When popula-tion increases, and a State shall send represent-atives in this proportion, Congress may remand them, because the right of liaving one for every 30,000 is not clearly expressed. This possibility of reducing the number to one for each State, approximates to probability by that other ex- 16 PATEICK HENET. pression, " but each State shall at least have one representative." Now is it not clear that, from the first expression, the number might be reduced so much, that some States should have no representative at all, were it not for the in-sertion of this last expression ? And as this is the only restriction upon them, we may fairly conclude that they may restrain the number to one from each State. Perhaps the same hor-rors may hang over my mind again. I shall be told I am continually afraid : but, sir, I have strong cause of apprehension. In some parts of the plan before you, the great rights of free-men are endangered, in other parts absolutely taken away. How does your trial by jury stand ? In civil cases gone—not sufficiently se-cured in criminal—this best privilege is gone. But we are told that we need not fear, because those in power being our representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in history, but I will sub-mit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny. Happy wiU you be, if you miss the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under intolerable despotism ! Most of the human race are now in this deplorable con-dition. And those nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power and splendor, have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their own foUy. While they acquired those visionary blessings, they lost their freedom. My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants. It is urged by some gentlemen, that this new plan will bring us an acquisition of strength ; an army, and the militia of the States. This is an idea extremely ridiculous: gentlemen cannot be in earnest. This acquisition will trample on your fallen liberty. Let my beloved Americans guard against that fatal lethargy that has per-vaded the universe. Have we the means of re-sisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress ? The honorable gentleman said, that great danger would ensue, if the convention rose without adopting this system. I ask, where is that danger? I see none. Other gentlemen have told us, within these walls, that the Union is gone—or, that the Union wiU be gone. Is not this trifling with the judgment of their fellow-citizens ? TUl they tell us the ground of their fears, I will consider them as imaginary. I rose to make inquiry where those dangers were ; they could make no answer : I believe I never shall have that answer. Is there a dis-position in the people of this country to revolt against the dominion of laws ? Has there been a single tumult in Virginia? Have not the people of Virginia, when laboring under the severest pressure of accumulated distresses. manifested the most cordial acquiescence in the execution of the laws? What could be more awful, than their unanimous acquiescence under general distresses ? Is there any revolution in Virginia? Whither is the spirit of America gone ? Whither is the genius of America fled? It was but yesterday, when our enemies marched in triumph through our country. Yet the peo-ple of tlais country could not be appalled by their pompous armaments : they stopped their career, and victoriously captured them : where is the peril now, compared to that ? Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for us, there is no real danger from Europe ; that coimtry is engaged in more ardu-ous business ; from that quarter, there is no cause of fear : you may sleep in safety for ever for them. Where is the danger ? If, sir, there was any, I would recur to the American spirit to defend us—that spirit which has enabled us to surmount the greatest difliculties : to that illustrious spirit I address my most fervent prayer, to prevent our adopting a system de-structive to liberty. Let not gentlemen be told, that it is not safe to reject this government. Wherefore is it not safe ? We are told there are dangers ; but those dangers are ideal ; they cannot be demonstrated. To encourage us to adopt it, they tell us that there is a plain, easy way of getting amendments. When I come to contemplate this part, I suppose that I am mad, or, that my countrymen are so. The way to amendment is, in my conception, shut. Let us consider this plain, easy way. " The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitution ; or, on the application of the legis-latures of two-thirds of the several Slates, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all in-tents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress. Provided, that no amendment which may be made prior to the year 1808, shall, in any man-ner, aftect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article ; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffi-age in the Senate." Hence it ap-pears, that three-fourths of the States must ultimately agree to any amendments that may be necessary. Let us consider the consequences of this. However uncharitable it may appear, yet I must express my opinion, that the most unworthy characters may get into power and prevent the introduction of amendments. Let us suppose, (for the case is supposable, possible and probable,) that you happen to deal these powers to unworthy hands ; wiU they relinquish powers already in their possession, or agree to amendments ? Two-thirds of the Congress, or of the State legislatures, are necessary even to propose amendments. If one-third of these be unworthy men, they may prevent the applica- THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. IT tion for amendments ; but a destructive and mischievous feature is, that three-fourths of the State legislatures, or of the State conventions, must concur in the amendments when proposed. In such numerous bodies, there must necessarily be some designing, bad men. To suppose that so large a number as three-fourths of the States will concur, is to suppose that they will possess genius, intelligence and integrity, approaching to miraculous. It would, indeed, be miraculous, that they should concur in the same amend-ments, or, even in such as would bear some likeness to one another. For four of the small-est States, that do not collectively contain one-tenth part of the population of the United States, may obstruct the most salutary and necessary amendments. Nay, in these four states, six-tenths of the people may reject these amendments ; and suppose, that amendments shall be opposed to amendments, (which is highly probable,) is it possible, that three-fourths can ever agree to the same amend-ments? A bare majority in these four small States, may hinder the adoption of amendments ; so that we may fairly and justly conclude, that one-twentieth part of the American people may prevent the removal of the most grievous inconveniences and oppression, by refusing to accede to amendments. A trifling minority may reject the most salutary amendments. Is this an easy mode of securing the public liberty? It is, sir, a most fearful situation, when the most contemptible minority can prevent the alteration of the most oppressive government; for it may, in many respects, prove to be such. Is this the spirit of republi-canism ? What, sir, is the genius of democracy ? Let me read that clause of the BUI of Eights of Virginia which relates to this : 3d clause ; " That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, nation, or community. Of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-adrainistration, and that whenever any go-vernment shall be found inadequate, or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitatile, unalienable and indefeasi-ble right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." This, sir, is the language of democracy—that a majority of the community have a right to alter their government when found to be oppressive: but how different is the genius of your new constitution from this ! How different from the sentiments of freemen, thai a contemptible minority can prevent the good of the majority! If then, gentlemen, standing on this ground, are come to that point, that they are willing to bind themselves and their posterity to be oppressed, I am amazed and inexpressibly astonished. If this be the opinion of the majority, I must submit ; but to me, sir, it appears perilous and destructive; I 2 cannot help thinking so : perhaps it may be the result of my age ; these may be feelings natural to a man of my years, when the American spirit has left him, and his mental powers, like the members of the body, are decayed. If, sir, amendments are left to the twentieth, or to the tenth part of the people of America, your liberty is gone for ever. We have heard that there is a great deal of bribery practised in the House of Commons in England ; and that many of the members raise themselves to preferments, by selling the rights of the people. But, sir, the tenth part of that body cannot continue oppres-sions on the rest of the people. English liberty is, in this case, on a firmer foundation than American liberty. It will be easily contrived to procure the opposition of one-tenth of the people to any alteration, however judicious. The honorable gentleman who presides, told us, that to prevent abuses in our government, we will assemble in convention, recall our dele-gated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed in them. Oh, sir, we should have fine times indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people. Your arms, wherewith you could de-fend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democrat-ical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in any nation, brought about by the punish-ment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all ? You read of a riot act in a country which is called one of the freest in the world, where a few neighbors cannot as-semble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America. A standing army we shall have also, to execute the execra-ble commands of tyranny : and how are you to punish them ? Will you order them to be pun-ished? Who shall obey these orders? WiU your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment? In what situation are we to be ? The clause before you gives a power of direct taxation, unbounded and unlimited; exclusive power of legislation in all cases whatsoever, for ten miles square, and over all places purchased for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, &c. What resistance could be made ? The attempt would be madness. You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies: those garrisons will naturally be the strongest places in the country. Your militia is given up to Congress also, in another part of this plan : they will therefore act as they think proper : all power will be in their own possession: you cannot force them to receive their punishment. Of what service would militia be to you, when most probably you will not have a single musket in the state ? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may, or may not, furnish them. Let us here call your attention to that part which gives the Congress power " To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such parts of them aa 18 PATRICK HENRY. may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to dis-cipline or arm our militia, they will be useless : the states can do neither, this power being ex-clusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed, is ridiculous: so that this pretended little remnant of power, left to the States, may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nuga-tory. Our situation wUl be deplorable indeed : nor can we ever expect to get this government amended ; since I have already shown, that a vei-y small minority may prevent it, and that small minority interested in the continuance of the oppression. Will the oppressor let go the oppressed ? Was there ever an instance ? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single exam-ple, where rulers, overcharged with power, willingly let go the oppressed, though solicited and requested most earnestly ? The application foi* amendments will therefore be fruitless. Sometimes the oppressed have got loose by one of those bloody struggles that desolate a country. But a willing relinquishment of power is one of those things which human nature never was, nor ever will be, capable of. The honorable gentleman's observations, re-specting the people's right of being the agents In the formation of this government, are not accurate, in "iiy humble conception. The dis-tinction between a national government and a confederacy, is not sufficiently discerned. Had the delegates, who were sent to Philadelphia, a power to propose a consolidated government instead of a confederacy ? Were they not de-puted by States, and not by the people ? The assent of the people, in their collective capacity, is not necessary to the formation of a federal government. The people have no right to enter into leagues, alliances, or confederations : they are not the proper agents for this purpose: States and sovereign powers are the only proper agents for this kind of government. Show me an instance where the people have exercised this business : has it not always gone through the legislatures? I refer you to the treaties with France, Holland, and other nations : how were they made? Were they not made by the States ? Are the people, therefore, in their ag-gregate capacity, the proper persons to form a confederacy ? This, therefore, ought to depend on the consent of the legislatures ; the people have never sent delegates to make any proposi-tion of changing the government. Yet I must say, at the same time, that it was made on grounds the most pure, and perhaps I might have been brought to consent to it, so far as to the change of government; but there is one thing in it, which I never would acquiesce in. I mean, the changing it into a consolidated gov-ernment, which is so abhorrent to my mind. The honorable gentleman then went on to the figure we make with foreign nations ; the contemptible one we make in France and Hol-land, which, according to the substance of my notes, he attributes to the present feeble gov-ernment. An opinion has gone forth, we find, that we are a contemptible people: the time i has been when we were thought otherwise. 1 Under this same despised government, we com- i manded the respect of all Europe : wherefore are we now reckoned otherwise ? The Ameri-can spirit has fled from hence : it has gone to regions, where it has never been expected : it has gone to the people of France, in search of a splendid government—a strong, energetic gov-ernment. Shall we imitate the example of thoso nations, who have gone from a simple to a splendid government ? Are those nations more worthy of our imitation ? What can make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss they have suffered in attaining such a government-— for the loss of their liberty ? If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great and splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire ; we must have an army, and a navy, and a num-ber of things. When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was dif-ferent : liberty, sir, was then the primary object. We are descended from a people whose govern-ment was founded on liberty : our glorious fore-fathers, of Great Britain, made liberty the fotm-dation of every thing. That country is become a great, mighty and splendid nation ; not be-cause their government is strong and energetic : but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation. We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors ; by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire. If you make the citizens of this country agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of America, your government will not have sufficient energy to keep them together : such a government is incompatible with the ge-nius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances; your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous, ideal checks and contrivances? But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners ; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happi-ness, or secure liberty ? I trust, sir, our politi-cal hemisphere will ever direct its operations to the security of those objects. Consider our situation, sir; go to the poor man, ask him what he does ; he will inform you that he en-joys the fruits of his labor, under his own fig-tree, with his wife and children around him, in peace and security. Go to every other member of the society, you will find the same tranquil ease and content ; you will find no alarms or disturbances ! Why then tell us of dangers, to terrify us into the adoption of this new form of TEE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 19 government ? And yet who knows the dangers that this new system may produce ? They are out of the sight of the common people : they cannot foresee latent consequences. I dread the operation of it on the middling and lower classes of people : it is for them I fear the adoption of this system. I fear I tire the patience of the committee, but I beg to be indulged with a few more observations. When I thus profess myself an advocate for the liberty of the people, I shall be told, I am a designing man, that I am to be a great man, that I am to be a demagogue ; and many similar illiberal insinuations will be thrown out ; but, sir, conscious rectitude outweighs these things with me. I see great jeopardy in this new gov-ernment : I see none from our present one. I hope some gentleman or other will bring forth, in full array, those dangers, if there be any, that we may see and touch them ; I have said that I thought this a consolidated government : I will now prove it. Will the great rights of the people be secured by this government? Suppose it should prove oppressive, how can it be altered? Our bill of rights declares, "That a majority of the community hath an indubita-ble, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." I have just proved, that one-tenth, or less, of the people of America—a most despicable minority, may prevent this reform, or alteration. Sup-pose the people of Virginia should wish to alter their government, can a majority of them do it ? No, because they are connected with other men; oi, in other words, consolidated with other States. When the people of Virginia, at a future day, shall wish to alter their govern-ment, though they should be unanimous in this desire, yet they may be prevented therefrom by a despicable minority at the extremity of the United States. The founders of your own con-stitution made your government changeable: but the power of changing it is gone from you ! Whither is it gone ? It is placed in the same hands that hold the rights of twelve other States ; and those, who hold those rights, have right and power to keep them. It is not the particular government of Virginia; one of the leading features of that government is, that a majority can alter it, when necessary for the public good. This government is not a Virgin-ian, but an American government. Is it not therefore a consolidated government? The sixth clause of your bill of rights tells you, " That elections of members to serve as repre-sentatives of the people in Assembly, ought to be free, and that all men, having sufficient evi-dence of permanent, common interest with, and attachment to the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property, for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representa-tives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not in like manner assented for the public good." But what does this constitution say ? The clause under consideration gives an unlimited and unbounded power of taxation. Suppose every delegate from Vu-ginia opposes a law laying a tax, what will it avail ? They are opposed by a majority ; eleven members can destroy their efforts: those feeble ten cannot prevent the passing the most oppressive tax-law. So that in direct opposition to the spirit and express language of your declaration of rights, you are taxed, not by your own consent, but by people who have no connection with you. The next clause of the bill of rights tells you, "That all power of suspending law, or the execution of laws, by any authority, with-out the consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised." This tells us that there can be no suspension of government, or laws, without our own consent ; yet this constitution can counteract and suspend any of our laws, that contravene its oppressive operation; for they have the power of direct taxation, which sus-pends our bill of rights ; and it is expressly pro-vided, that they can make all laws necessary for carrying their powers into execution ; and it is declared paramount to the laws and constitu-tions of the States. Consider how the only re-maining defence, we have left, is destroyed in this manner. Besides the expenses of main-taining the Senate and other House in as much splendor as they please, there is to be a great and mighty president, with very extensive pow-ers— the powers of a king. He is to be sup-ported in extravagant magnificence : so that the whole of our property may be taken by this American government, by laying what taxes they please, giving themselves what salaries they please, and suspending our laws at their pleasure. I might be thought too inquisitive, but I believe I should take up but very little of your time in enumerating the little power that is left to the government of Virginia ; for this power is reduced to little or nothing. Their garrisons, magazines, arsenals, and forts, which will be situated in the strongest places within the States—their ten miles square, with all the fine ornaments of human life, added to their powers, and taken from the States, will reduce the power of the latter to nothing. The voice of tradition, I trust, will inform posterity of our struggles forfreedom. If our descendants be wor-thy the name of Americans, they will preserve, and hand down to their latest posterity, the transactions of the present times ; and though, I confess, my exclamations are not worthy the hearing, they will see that I have done my ut-most to preserve their liberty : for I never will give up the power of direct taxation, but for a scourge. I am willing to give it conditionally; that is, after non-compliance with requisitions : I will do more, sir, and what I hope will con-vince the most sceptical man, that I am a lover of the American Union ; that in case Virginia shall not make punctual payment, the control of our custom-houses, and the whole regulation 20 PATEICK HENKY. of trade, shall be given to Congress ; and that Virginia shall depend on Congress even for passports, till Virginia shall have paid the last farthing, and furnished the last soldier. Nay, sir, there is another alternative to which I would consent : even that they should strike us out of the Union, and take away from us all federal privileges, till we comply with federal requisitions; but let it depend upon our own pleasure to pay our money in the most easy manner for our people. Were all the States, more terrible than the mother country, to join against us, I hope Virginia could defend her-self; but, sir, the dissolution of the Union is most abhorrent to my mind. The first thing I have at heart is American liberty ; the second thing is American union ; and I hope the people of Virginia will endeavor to preserve that union. The increasing population of the Southern States, is far greater than that of New England; consequently, in a short time, they will be far more numerous than the people of that coun-try. Consider this, and you will find this State more particularly interested to support Ameri-can liberty, and not bind our posterity by an improvident relinquishment of our rights. I would give the best security for a punctual compliance with requisitions; but I beseech gentlemen, at all hazards, not to grant this un-limited power of taxation. The honorable gentleman has told us that these powers given to Congress, are accompa-nied by a judiciary which will correct all. On examination, you will find this very judiciary oppressively constructed, your jury-trial de-stroyed, and the judges dependent on Congress. In this scheme of energetic government, the people will find two sets of tax-gatherers—the State and the federal sheriifs. This, it seems to me, will produce such dreadful oppression, as the people cannot possibly bear. The federal sheriff may commit what oppression, make what dis-tresses, he pleases, and ruin you with impunity : for how are you to tie his hands ? Have you any sufficient, decided means of preventing him from sucking your blood by speculations, com-missions, and fees? Thus thousands of your people will be most shamefully robbed. Our State sheriffs, those unfeeling bloodsuckers, have, under the watchful eye of our legislature, committed the most horrid and barbarous rav-ages on our people. It has required the most constant vigilance of the legislature to keep them from totally ruining the people. A re-peated succession of laws has been made, to suppress their iniquitous speculations and cruel extortions ; and as often has their nefarious in-genuity devised methods of evading the force of those laws: in the struggle, they have gene-rally triumphed over the legislature. It is a fact, that lands have sold for five shillings, which were worth one hundred pounds. If sheriffs, thus immediately under the eye of our State legislature and judiciary, have dared to commit these outrages, what would they not have done if their masters had been at Phila-delphia or New York ? If they perpetrate the most unwarrantable outrage, on your persons or property, you cannot get redress on this side ot Philadelphia or New York : and how can you get it there ? If your domestic avocations could permit you to go thither, there you must appeal to judges sworn to support this constitution in opposition to that of any State, and who may also be inclined to favor their own officers. When these harpies are aided by excisemen, who may search, at any time, your houses and most secret recesses, will the people bear it? If you think so, you differ from me. Where I thought there was a possibility of such mis-chiefs, I would grant power with a niggardly hand; and here there is a strong probability that these oppressions shall actually happen. I may be told, that it is safe to err on that side ; because such regulations may be made by Con-gress, as shall restrain these officers, and be-cause laws are made by our representatives, and judged by righteous judges : but, sir, as these regulations may be made, so they may not; and many reasons there are to induce a belief, that they wiU not : I shall therefore be an infi-del on that point tUl the day of my death. This constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me horribly fright-ful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting ; it squints towards monarchy : and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your Pi-esident may easily become king. Your Senate is so imper-fectly constructed, that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority : and a very small minority may continue for ever unchangeably this government, although hor-ridly defective. Where are your checks in tliis government? Your strongholds will be in the hands of your enemies. It is on a supposition that your American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this'' government are founded; but its defective and imperfect construction, puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men. And, sir, would not all the world, from the eastern to the western hemisphere, blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty. I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt. If your American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy will it be for him to render himself absolute ! The < army is in his hands, and, if he be a man of address, it will be attached to him ; and it will , be the subject of long meditation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to accomplish his design. And, sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens ? I would rather infinitely, and I am sure most of this THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION". 21 convention are of the same opinion, have a king, lords and commons, than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them: but the president in the field, at the bead of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any American ever to get his neck from under the galling yoke. I cannot, with patience, think of this idea. If ever he violates the laws, one of two things will happen : he will come at the head of his army to carry every thing before him ; or, he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the American throne ? Will not the immense dif-ference between being master of every thing, and being ignominiously tried and punished, powerfully excite him to make this bold push ? But, sir, where is the existing force to punish him? Can he not, at the head of his army, beat down every opposition ? Away with your president, we shall have a king: the army will salute him monarch ; your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king, and fight against you : and what have you to oppose tliis force? What will then become of you and your rights^ Will not absolute despotism ensue ? [Here Mr. Henry strongly and pathetic-ally expatiated on the probability of the presi-dent's enslaving America, and the horrid con-sequences that must result.] What can be more defective than the clause concerning the elections? The control given to Congress, over the time, place and manner of holding elections, will totally destroy the end of suffrage. The elections may be held at one place, and the most inconvenient in the state ; or they may be at remote distances from those who have a right of suflrage : hence, nine out of ten must either not vote at all, or vote for strangers : for the most influential characters will be applied to, to know who are the most proper to be chosen. I repeat, that the control of Congress over the manner, &c. of electing, well warrants this idea. The natural conse-quence will be, that this democratic branch will possess none of the public confidence : the people will be prejudiced against representatives chosen in such an injudicious manner. The proceedings in the northern conclave will be hidden from the yeomanry of this country. We are told, that the yeas and nays shall be taken and entered on the journals : this, sir, will avail nothing: it may be locked up in their chests, and concealed for ever from the people ; for they are not to publish what parts they think require secrecy ; they may think, and will think, the whole requires it. Another beautiful feature of this constitu-tion, is the publication, from time to time, of the receipts and expenditures of the public money. This expression, from time to time, is very indefinite and indeterminate : it may ex-tend to a century. Grant that any of them are wicked, they may squander the public money so as to ruin you, and yet this expression will give you no redress. I say, they may ruin you ; for where, sir, is the responsibility ? The yeas and nays will show you nothing, unless they be fools as well as knaves; for, after having wickedly trampled on the rights of the people, they would act like fools indeed, were they to publish and divulge their iniquity, when they have it equally in their power to suppress and conceal it. Where is the respon-sibility— that leading principle in the British government? In that government, a punish-ment, certain and inevitable, is provided; but in this, there is no real, actual punishment for the grossest mal-administration. They may go without punishment, though they commit the most outrageous violation on our immunities. That paper may tell me they will be punished. I ask, by what law ? They must make the law, for there is no existing law to do it. What — will they make a law to punish themselves? This, sir, is my great objection to the constitu-tion, that there is no true responsibility, and that the preservation of our liberty depends on the single chance of men being virtuous enough to make laws to punish themselves. In the country from which we are descended, they have real, and not imaginary responsibility; for there, mal-administration has cost their heads to some of the most saucy geniuses that ever were. The senate, by making treaties, may destroy your liberty and laws, for want of responsibility. Two-thirds of those that shall happen to be present, can, with the president, make treaties, that shall be the supreme law of the land : they may make the most ruinous treaties, and yet there is no punishment for them. Whoever shows me a punishment pro-vided for them, will oblige me. So, sir, not-withstanding there are eight pillars, they want another. Where will they make another? I trust, sir, the exclusion of the evils wherewith this system is replete, in its present form, will be made a condition precedent to its adoption, by this or any other state. The transition from a general, unqualified admission to oflices, to a consolidation of government, seems easy ; for, though the American States are dissimilar in tlieir structure, this will assimilate them : this, sir, is itself a strong consolidating feature, and is not one of the least dangerous in that system. Nine States are sufficient to establish this gov-ernment over those nine. Imagine that nine have come into it. Virginia has certain scru-ples. Suppose she will consequently refuse to join with those States : may not they still con-tinue in friendship and union with her? If she sends her annual requisitions in dollars, do you think their stomiifhs will be so squeamish as to refuse her dollars? Will they not accept her regiments ? They would intimidate you into an inconsiderate adoption, and frighten you with ideal evils, and that the Union shall be PATEICK HENEY. dissolved. 'Tis a bugbear, sir : the fact is, sir, that the eight adopting States can hardly stand on their own legs. Public fame teUs us, that the adopting States have already heart-burnings and animosity, and repent their precipitate hurry : this, sir, may occasion exceeding great mischief. When I reflect on these, and many other circumstances, I must think those States will be found to be in confederacy with us. If we pay our quota of money annually, and fur-nish our ratable number of men, when neces-sary, I can see no danger from a rejection. The history of Switzerland clearly proves, that we might be in amicable alliance with those States, without adopting this constitution. Switzerland is a confederacy, consisting of dis-similar governments. Tliis is an example, which proves that governments, of dissimilar struc-tures, may be confederated. That confederate republic has stood upwards of four hundred years ; and, although several of the individual republics are democratic, and the rest aristo-cratic, no evil has resulted from this dissimilar-ity, for they have braved all the power of France and Germany, during that long period. The Swiss spirit, sir, has kept them together; they have encountered and overcome immense difficulties, with patience and fortitude. In the vicinity of powerful and ambitious monarchs, they have retained their independence, repub-lican simplicity and valor. [Here Mr. Henry drew a comparison between the people of that country and those of France, and made a quo-tation from Addison, illustrating the subject.] Look at the peasants of that country, and of France, and mark the difference. You will find the condition of the former far more desir-able and comfortable. No matter whether a people be great, splendid and powerful, if they enjoy freedom. The Turkish Grand Seignior, along-side of our president, would put us to disgrace: but we should be abundantly con-soled for this disgrace, should our citizen be put in contrast with the Turkish slave. The most valuable end of government, is the liberty of the inhabitants. No possible advan-tages can compensate for the loss of this privi-lege. Show me the reason why the American Union is to be dissolved. Who are those eight adopting States? Are they averse, to give us a little time to consider, before we conclude? Would such a disposition render a junction with them eligible ; or, is it the genius of that kind of government, to precipitate a people hastily into measures of the utrnost importance, and grant no indulgence ? If it be, sir, is it for us to accede to such a government ? We have a right to have time to consider—we shall there-fore insist upon it. Unless the government be amended, we can never accept it. The adopt-ing States will doubtless accept our money and our regiments; and what is to be the conse-quence, if we are disunited? I believe that it is yet doubtful, whether it is not proper to stand by awhile, and see the effect of its adop-tion in other States. In forming a government. the utmost care should be taken, to prevent ita becoming oppressive ; and this government is of such an intricate and complicated nature, that no man on this earth can know its real operation. The other States have no reason to think, from the antecedent conduct of Virginia, that she has any intention of seceding from the Union, or of being less active to support the general welfare. Would they not, therefore, acquiesce in our taking time to deliberate—de-liberate whether the measure be not perDous, not only for us, but the adopting States. Per-mit me, sir, to say, that a great majority of the people, even in the adopting States, are averse to this government; I believe I would be right to say, that they have been egregiously misled. Pennsylvania has, perhaps, been tacked into it. If the other States, who have adopted it, have not been tricked, still they were too much hur-ried into its adoption. There were very re-spectable minorities in several of them ; and, if reports be true, a clear majority of the people are averse to it. If we also accede, and it should prove grievous, the peace and prosperity of our country, which we all love, will be de-stroyed. This government has not the affection of the people, at present. Should it be oppres-sive, their affection will be totally estranged from it—and, sir, you know, that a government without their affections can neither be durable nor happy. I speak as one poor individual—bu
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Title | American eloquence: A collection of speeches and addresses, by the most eminent orators of America. Vol. 1 |
Author | Moore, Frank |
Related to | Intellectual Underpinnings of the Civil War: http://www.archive.org/details/americaneloquenc01inmoor |
Date Published | 1857 |
Description | This book is volume 1 of a 2-volume set written by Frank Moore and published by D. Appleton and Co., New York, in 1857. It contains speeches and addresses by American orators. It also contains biographical sketches of the orators. |
Table of Contents | Vol. 1. James Otis; Patrick Henry; Richard Henry Lee; William Henry Drayton; Joseph Warren; James Wilson; William Livingston; Fisher Ames; John Rutledge; James Madison; John Jay; Edmund Randolph; Alexander Hamilton; John Hancock; John Adams; George Washington; Elias Boudinot; John Dickinson; John Witherspoon; David Ramsay; Samuel Adams; Josiah Quincy, Jr.; Benjamin Bush; Robert R. Livingston; H. H. Brackenridge; Charles Pinckney; Luther Martin; Oliver Ellsworth; Christopher Gore; Red Jacket; Uriah Tracy; Henry Lee; Gouverneur Morris; Robert Goodloe Harper; Thomas Addis Emmet; George Richards Minot; Harrison Gray Otis; De Witt Clinton; |
Decade | 1850s |
Print Publisher | New York, D. Appleton and Co. |
Subject Terms | Orators--United States; Speeches, addresses, etc., American |
Language | eng |
File Name | americaneloquenc01inmoor.pdf |
Document Type | Text |
File Format | |
File Size | 47.2 Mb |
Digital Publisher | Auburn University Libraries |
Rights | This document is the property of the Auburn University Libraries and is intended for non-commercial use. Users of the document are asked to acknowledge the Auburn University Libraries. |
Submitted By | Coates, Midge |
OCR Transcript | >;*SvrNv'% ^^i '•w >, THE LIBRARY v.l SPECIAL COLLECTIOMS :^'-!?«8=^^. ^^^^^''i'lt^j^ -':^_ ^j^^&€^: > jjp-iiWfeS *^t '^^^' «V^ ^-U": 'tijet^ „ . «iN*r-. .^^ilAi^ ..^ 1- ,.J^ ^f SUBSCRIBER'S COPY. Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive , in 2010 witii funding from Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/americaneloquenc01inmoor ^;^ ''.;'' i>' V.^O^J^ukKitiri AMERICAN ELOQUENCE: ^ (EoUection of SPEECHES AND ADDRESSES, BY THE MOST EMINENT OEATORS OF AMERICA; WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES, By frank MOORE. " There were Gyants in the earth in thofe dayes mightie men, which were of olde, men of renowne." IN TWO VOLUMES, VOL. I. NEW YOEK: D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 346 & 348 BROADWAY. COLUMBUS, 0.: FOLLETT & FOSTER. 185Y. AUBURN UNIVERSITY lALPH BROWN DRAUGHON UMAWT AUBURN, AlABAAAA 3««90 EuTEEED, according to Act of Congress, In the year 1857, by T>. APPLETON & COMPANY, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the Southern District of Ne* York. PS LCI v./ SPECIAL GOLLtCTIOMS PREFACE. The design of the present work is to furnisli a convenient and popular Library Edition of tlie most celebrated Speeches and Addresses, forensic and parliamentary, of the principal Orators and Statesmen of America. It contains many which have never before been included in any collection ; and heretofore inaccessible to the student and general reader. As far as attainable, specimens of the eloquence of the Continental Congress have been given, which fully illustrate the principles and portray the sufferings of the Kevolutionary Period. Many entire speeches from the debates in Congress, since the year 17S9, under tne present organization of the Government, will also be found in this work. Selections from the earnest and able discussions in the State Conventions of the principles involved in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, also foi-m a considerable portion of the work ; and thus render it valuable as a means of acquiring an understanding of that important instrument. The biographical sketches, preceding the selections from the works of each orator, are intended to present a brief outline of their lives and public services, the limited space allowed for that portion of the work precluding more extended notices. The analytical index attached to the work may render it generally useful as a book of reference. The want of a work of this kind is too obvious to make any apology necessary for its publication at the present time. Should its success warrant such a course, another series, embracing the moke keoent and livikg oeatoks, prepared upon the same .plan, will be offered to the public. PREFACE, In closing, the Editor acknowledges his obligations to the numerous individuals from whom he has received valuable assistance, and especially to his brother, George H. Moore ; to Mrs. Laura Wolcott Gibbs, for permission to copy the miniature of Alexander Hamilton, painted by her, and now in her possession ; to Dr. John W. Francis, for the extension of his usual courtesies ; to Mr. Henry T. Tuckerman, for valuable suggestions ; to Mr. "William Hunter, of the State Department, Washington, for the material contained in the sketch of his father's life; to the Libraries of the New York Historical Society, the Mercantile Library Association, the ISTew York Society Library, and the Astor Library, as well as to the officers of these Institutions for the facility with which he has been enabled to make use of their valuable collections. New Yoek, August, 1st, 1857. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. J JAilES OTIS : Sketch of his Life, Speech on the Writs of Assistance, On the study of the Law, PATRICK HENRY : Sketch of his Life, . Speech on the Federal Constitution, . Another speech on the same subject. Reply to Edmund Randolph, . RICHARD HEXRT LEE : Sketch of his Life, .... Address of the American Colonies to the iU' habitants of Great Britain : 1775, . WILLIAM HENRY DRAYTON: Sketch of his Life, .... 48 Charge to the Grand Jury of Charleston Dis-trict, South Carolina : 1776, . . 50 JOSEPH WARREN : Sketch of his Life, . Oration on the Boston Massacre, JAMES WILSON : Sketch of his Life, .... 65 Vindication of the Colonies; a speech deliver-ed in the Convention for the Province of Pennsylvania: 1775, . . .68 Speech on the Federal Constitution, . 74 WILLIAM LIVINGSTON Sketch of his Life, . . . _ 82 Speech to the New Jersey Legislature : 1777, 88 FISHER AMES : Sketch of his Life, . . . .91 Speech on Madison's Resolutions, . , 92 Speech on the British Treaty, . . 104 JOHN RUTLED6E : Sketch of his Life, . . . .113 Address to the South Carolina Assembly: 1776, 120 Speech to the General Assembly : 1782, . 122 JAJIES MADISON: """ Sketch of his Life, . . . . 125 Speech on the Federal Constitution, j_ . 127 Speech on the British Treaty, . . .144 JOHN JAY: Sketch of his Life, .... 151 Address to the People of Great Britain : 1774, 159 EDMUND RANDOLPH : Sketch of his Life, . . . . 153 Speech on the Federal Constitution, . 165 Argument in the Trial of Aaron Burr, . 174 ALEXANDER HAMILTON : Sketch of his Life, .... 183 Speech on the Federal Constitution, . . 187 Remarks in the Federal Convention of New York, on Mr. Gilbert Livingston's pro-posed amendment to the Constitution, 195 Further remarks on the Federal Constitution, 200 Argument in the case of Harry Croswell, . 204 Speech on the Revenue System, . . 215 JOHN HANCOCK : Sketch of his Life, ....224 Oration on the Boston Massacre, . . 227 JOHN ADAMS : Sketch of his Life, ....232 Speech in defence ofthe British Soldiers: 1770, 235 Inaugural Address : 1797, . . . 248 GEORGE WASHINGTON: Sketch of his Life, Inaugural Address : 1789, Farewell Address, . 251 252 . 254 ELIAS BOUDINOT: Sketch of his Life, . . . .262 Oration before the New Jeraey Society of Cin-cinnati, . , . . . 264 Speech on Non-Intercourse with Great Brit-ain : 1794, . . . .270 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. JOHN DICKINSON: Sketch of his Life 273 Speech in the Pennsylvania Assembly : 1764, 277 The Declaration on Taking up Arms : 1775, 286 JOHN WITHERSPOON: Sketch of his Life 290 Speech on the Conference with Lord Howe, . 298 Remarks on the Confederation, . . 296 Speech on the Conyention with Eurgoyne, . 298 Speech on the Appointment of Plenipoten-tiaries, ..... 301 Speech on the Loan Office Certificates, . 303 A Portion of a speech on the Finances, . 305 DAVID RAMSAY : Sketch of his Life 308 Oration on the Advantages of American In-dependence, . . ; . . 310 Extract from an Oration on the Cession of Louisiana to the United States, . . 318 SAMUEL ADAMS Sketch of his Life, . . . .819 Oration on American Independence, . . 324 JOSIAH QUINCY, Jr: Sketch of his Life, . . . .331 An Appeal, under the signature of "Hy-perion :" 1768, . . . .334 Speech in Defence of the British Soldiers : 1770, 336 BENJAMIN RUSH : Sketch of his Life, . . . .346 Address to the People of the United States, 1787, previous to the meeting of the Federal Convention, . . . 347 BOBERT R. LIVINGSTON : Sketch of his Life, . . . .350 Oration before the New York Society of Cin-cinnati : 1787, . . '\ . - . 352 The Purse and Sword ; an extract, . . 355 H. H. BRACKENRIDGE : Sketch of his Life, . . . .356 An Eulogium on " the brave men who have fallen in the contest with Great Britain :" 1779, 358 CHARLES PINCKNEY : Sketch of his Life, . . . .361 Observations on the Federal Constitution, . 362 LUTHER MARTIN : Sketch of his Life 871 Speech on the Federal Convention, . . 373 OLIVER ELLSWORTH : Sketch of his Life 401 Remarks on the Federal Constitution, . 404 Speech on the Power of Congress to levy Taxes, ..... 406 CHRISTOPHER GORE : Sketch of his Life, . . . .410 Speech on the Prohibition of certain Imports : 1814, 412 Speech on Direct Taxation, . . . 417 RED JACKET : Sketch of his Life, . . . .423 Reply to Samuel Dexter, . . . 426 Defence of stifF-armed-George, . . 427 Reply to Mr. Cram, . . . .429 URIAH TRACY: Sketch of his Life, . . . .431 Speech on a proposed amendment of the Con-stitution: 1802, . . . .482 Remarks on the Judiciary Systetn, . 442 HENRY LEE : Sketch of his Life, . . . .447 Eulogy on Washington, . . . 449 60UVERNEUR MORRIS: Sketch of his Life, ....453 Speech on the Judiciary, . . ' . 457 Discourse before the New York Historical Society: 1812, . . . .466 Speech on the Navigation of the Mississippi, 475 Oration over the dead body of Hamilton, . 487 BOBERT GOODLOE HARPER : Sketch of his Life, . . . .489 Speech on the Aggressions of France, . 491 Speech on the Appointment of Foreign Minis-ters,...... 503 THOMAS ADDIS EMMET : Sketch of his Life, .... 825 Speech in the trial of William S. Smith, . 528 Argument in the trial of Robert M. Goodwin, 537 GEORGE RICHARDS MINOT : Sketch of his Life, .... 551 Eulogy on Washington, . . . 552 HARRISON GRAY OTIS : Sketch of his Life, ....5o7 Eulogy on Hamilton, . . . 559 DE WITT CLINTON : Sketch of his Life, . . . .565 Speech on the Navigation of the Mississippi, 567 AMEKICAN ELOQUENCE. JAMES OTIS. Thb subject of this memoir, descended in the fifth generation from John Otis, who came over from England at a very early period of the Colony of Massachusetts Eay, and settled at Hingham, was born on the 5th of February, 1725, in the family mansion, at Great Marshes, now West Barnstable, Massachusetts. Nothing is known of his early youth. Pursuing his classical studies under the guidance of the Eeverend Jonathan Eussel, minister of the parish in which he lived, he entered Harvard College in June, 1739, and took his first degree in 1743. " During the first two years of his college life," says his biographer, "his natural ardor and vivacity made his society much courted by the elder students, and engaged him more in amusement than in study ; but he changed his course in the junior year, and began thenceforward to give indica-tions of great talent and power of application." The only record of his having taken any part in the usual collegiate courses, is that of a syllogistic disputation, on receiving his first degree. At college, excepting his two first years, he was serious in his disposition and steady in the prosecution of his studies. When he came home during the vacations, being so devoted to his books, he was seldom seen ; and the near neighbors to his father's dwelling would sometimes only remark his return after he had been at home a fortnight. Though enveloped and marked with some of the gravity and abstraction natural to severe application, he would occasionally discover the wit and humor which formed, afterwards, striking ingredients in his character. A small party of young people being assembled one day at his father's house, when he was at home during a college vacation, he had taken a slight part in their sports, when, after much persua-sion, they induced him to play a country dance for them with his violin, on Vi'hich instrument he then practised a little. The set was made up, and after they were fairly engaged, he suddenly stopped, and holding up his fiddle and bow, exclaimed, " So Orpheus fiddled, and so danced the brutes ! " and then tossing the instrument aside, rushed into the garden, followed by the disap-pointed revellers, who were obliged to convert their intended dance into a frolicsome chase after the fugitive musician. It was the intention of Mr. Otis to qualify himself for the practice of law, but he did not engage in the appropriate studies for that purpose injmediately on leaving college. He wisely devoted nearly two years to the pursuits of general literature and science, intending thereby to establish broad and deep the foundations of his professional studies. In 1745 he commenced the study of the law, in the ofiice of Jeremiah Gridley, at that time the most eminent lawyer in the province ; and on completing those studies, he removed to Plymouth, and practised there during the years 1748 and 1749. Finding the "narrow range of country business " unsuited to Ms powers, he returned to Boston, where he soon rose to the highest position in his profession, being often called upon from other colonies and distant provinces for legal assistance and advice. 2 JAMES OTIS. Tlirough all his professional engagements, he still retained his taste for literature. In 1760, he published " The Kudiments of Latin Prosody, with a Dissertation on Letters, and the Principles of Harmony, in Poetic and Prosaic Composition, collected from the best "Writers." He also composed a similar work on Greek Prosody, which was never published, but perished with all the rest of his papers. The important events preceding and connected with the American Eevolution, attracted the attention of Mr. Otis. On the death of George the Second, in 1760, his grandson reached the throne. The conquest of Canada was completed, and rumors were widely spread that the colo-nies were to be deprived of their charters and formed into royal governments. The new king issued orders that enabled his officers of the revenue to compel the sheriffs and constables of the provinces to search for goods which it was supposed had not paid the taxes imposed by Parlia-ment. The good will of the colonists was wanted no longer to advance the prosecution of the war, and Writs of Assistance were undertaken through the influence of royal governors and some other interested friends of the Crown. The first application for those writs was made at Salem, Massachusetts. Stephen Sewall,* who was the Chief Justice of the Superior Court, expressed great doubt of the legality of such writs, and of the authority of the court to grant them. The other judges would not favor it ; and as it was an application of the Crown, that could not be dismissed without a hearing, it was postponed to the nest term of the court, to be holden at Boston, in February, 1761. The probable result of this question caused great anxiety among the mercantile portion of the community. The merchants spplied to Benjamin Pratt,t to under-take their cause, but he declined, being about to leave Boston for Kew York, of which province he had been appointed Chief Justice. They then solicited Otis, and Oxenbridge Thacher,t both of whom engaged to make their defence. The arguments in this important case, were heard in the Council Chamber of the old Town House in Boston. Chief Justice Sewall having died, Lieut. Gov. Hutchinson had been appointed as his successor, and before him the case was opened, by Mr. Gridley,§ Otis's veteran law teacher, then Attorney General. He was followed by Mr. Thacher, with great ingenuity and ability, on the side of the merchants. " But," in the language of President Adams, " Otis was a flame Stephen Sewall was the son of Major Samuel Sewall, of Salem, Mass. He was horn in December, 1702, and gradnated at Harvard College, in 1721. In 1728 he was chosen tutor in the College, and occnpied that position until 1739, when he was called to take a seat on the Bench of the Superior Court. On the death of Chief Justice Dudley, in 1752, he was ap-pointed to succeed him, though not the senior judge. He was distinguished for his honor, integrity, moderation, and great beijevolcnce. He died in December, 1760, and the loss of this impartial, high-minded magistrate, at that critical period, was rightly esteemed a great public misfortune. ~^ + Mr. Tratt affords a striking example how strong talent and energy of mind may raise one from a humble lot, and make evon calamity the foundation of prosperity. He was bred a mechanic, and met with a serious injury that prevented him from pursuing his occupatiou. He turned his mind to study, entered Harvard College, and took his first degree in 1737. He studied law, and rose to great distinction at the bar. Through the friendship of Governor Pownall, he was made Chief Justice of New York, in 1761. A cause of great difficulty, which had been many years depending, being brought up soon after he had taken his seat, gave him an opportunity of displaying the depth and acuteness of his intellect, and the sound-ness of his judgment, and secured for him at once the public respect and confidence. He wrote some political essays on the topics of the day; and a few remaining fragments in verse of his composition, a specimen of which is preserved in Knapp's Biography, prove that he possessed both taste and talent for poetry. He presided over the Courts of New York but two years, dying in 1763, at the age of fifty-five.— ruder. J Mr. Thacher was at that time one of the heads of the bar in Boston ; was a fine scholar, and possessed of much general learning. He received his degree at Harvard College, in 173S. Unassuming and affable in his deportment, of strict moral-ity, punctual in his religious duties, and with sectarian attachments, that made him, like a large majority of the people around him, look with jealousy and enmity on the meditated encroachments of the English hierarchy; he was in all these respects fitted to be popular. To these qualities he joined the purest and most ardent patriotism, and a quick perception of those in power. His opposition gave the government great uneasiness; his disposition and habits secured public confi-dence ; his moderation, learning, and ability, gave weight to His opinions, and prevented him from being considered as under the influence of others. John Adams s.ays, the advocates of the Crown "hated hiai worse than they did James Otis or Samuel Adams." Thacher published some essays on the subject of an alteration proposed by Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson relative to the value of gold and silver; also, a pamphlet against the policy of the Navigaticp Act, and the Acts of Trade, entitled, " The Sentiments ofa Bi-itUh Ame'-ican.'" He died, of a pulmonary complaint, in 1765. § Mr. Gridley was one of the principal lawyers and civilians of this time. He took his degree at Harvard College, In 1T25. He came to Boston as an assistant in the Grammar School, for some time preached occasionally ; but turning his at-tention to the law, he soon rose to distinction In the profession. He set on foot a weekly journal, in 1732, called the Ee Acarsal, in which he wrote on various literary as well as political subjects; but it lasted only one year. He was a Whig In politics, and as a representative from Brookline, in the General Court, opposed the measnrea of the ministry. He was JAMES OTIS. of fire ; witli a promptitude of classical allusions, a depth of research, a rapid summary of historical e^ ents and dates, a profusion of legal authorities, a prophetic glance of his eyes into futurity, and a rapid torrent of impetuous eloquence, lie hurried away all before him. American independence was then and there born. The seeds of patriots and heroes, to defend the Non sine Diis animosus in/am* to defend the vigorous youth, were then and there sown. Every man of an immense crowded audience appeared to me to go away as I did, ready to take arms against Writs of Assistance. Then and there was the first scene of the first act of opposition to the arbitrary claims of Great Britain. Then and there the child Independence was born. In fifteen years, i. e. in 1776, he grew up to manhood and declared himself free." The princi-ples Otis educed and elaborated with such profound learning, humor and pathos, could not be subverted, and the court at the close of his speech adjourned for consideration : Chief Justice Hutchinson, at the end of the term, giving the opinion, " The Court has considered the subject of "Writs of Assistance, and can see no foundation for such a writ; but as the practice in England is not known, it has been thought best to continue the question to the nest term, that in the mean time opportunity may be given to know the result." t It was on the occasion of this masterly performance, when Otis stood forth as the bold and brilliant advocate of colonial rights, that he became famous. Although he had never before interfered in public affairs, his exertions on this single occasion secured him a commanding popularity with the friends of their country, and the terror and vengeance of her enemies ; neither of which ever deserted him. In May, 1761, he was chosen to the Legislature, in which assembly he wielded immense power. His superiority as a legislator was everywhere acknowl-edged, and in all important measures he was foremost. In 1762 he published the "Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Eepresentatives of the Province of Massachusetts Bay," &c., a work in which many volumes are concentrated. "Look over the Declarations of Eights and Wrongs issued by Congress in 1774," says John Adams. "Look into the Declaration of Inde-pendence, in 1776. Look into the Writings of Dr. Price and Dr. Priestly. Look into all the French Constitutions of government; and to cap the climax, look into Mr. Thomas Paine's Common Sense, Crisis, and Eights of Man ; and what can you find that is not to be found in solid substance in this Vindication of the House of Eepresentatives ? " Mr. Otis was a member of the Congress which met at New York in the month of October in the year 1765. During the same year he published " A Vindication of the British Colonies," &c. Also, "Considera-tions on behalf of the Colonists, in a Letter to a Noble Lord." It was written with spirit and ability, and was the last work that appeai-ed from his pen. On the return of Otis to the colo-nial legislature of 1766, he was appointed chairman of a committee to reply to a message of Governor Bernard, in which that officer had shown some resentment. In the answer to the message they say, " It appears to us an undue exercise of the prerogative to lay us under the necessity either of silence, or of being thought out of season in making a reply. Your Excel-lency says, that these times have been more difficult than they need have been ; which is also the opinion of this House. Those who have made them so, have reason to regret the injury they have done to a sincere and honest people." It need not be said that Otis had neither respect nor fear of the royal governor. The same year Mr. Otis brought before the legislature a proposition " for. opening a gallery of the House for such as wished to hear the debates ; thus aiding in the establishment of one of the most important principles of representative gov-ernment, the publicity of legislative proceedings. Until this time it had been customary for the legislative assemblies to sit with closed doors, and it was with gi-eat reluctance that the change was made. During the summer of the year 1767, Parliament passed an act " to raise a revenue in however, appointed Attorney-General, when Mr. Trowbridge was promoted to the Bench, and In that capacity was obliged to defend the famous " Writs of Assistance," in which he was opposed and wholly confuted by his pnpil, Otis. Ho was a Colonel of the Militia, and Grand Master of the Free Masons, and belonged to some other charitable associations. IIu died in Boston, September Tth, n67.—£liot * This motto was furnished by Sir 'William Jones for the Alliance Medal, struck in Paris to commemorate the alUanoa between France and America. + "When the next term came," says Mr. Adams, "no Judgment was pronounced,—nothing was said about Writs ol Assistance." 4 JAMES OTIS. America," imposing duties on glass, paper, painters' colors and tea ; and by virtue of another act, the king was empowered to put the customs and other duties in America, and the execution of the laws relating to trade in the colonies, under the management of resident commissioners. The news of the passage of these bills revived the popular excitement which arose at the time of the Stamp Act, which had died away on its repeal. A town meeting was held in Boston, at which Mr. Otis appeared, " contrary to his usual practice, as the adviser of cautious and mode-rate proceedings," for which moderation he was charged with being a friend to the act for appointing commissioners. To this charge he replied, "If the name and office of Commissioner General imports no more than that of a Surveyor General, no man of sense will contend about a name. The tax—the tax is undoubtedly, at present, the apparent matter of grievance." At this meeting resolutions were passed to encourage the manufactures of the province, and to abstain from the purchase of articles on which duties were imposed, thus deceiving Bernard, the governor, by the quiet character of their proceedings, which were represented as "the last efforts of an expiring faction," but at the same time becoming more firm and decided. To all the movements of the king and ministry to abridge the liberties of the colonists, Otis maintained a decided and fearless opposition. Bold and daring in the expression of his prin-ciples and opinions, he sometimes gave utterance to unguarded epithets, but never employed his gift of irony and sarcasm in a spirit of hatred towards the masses of mankind. Owing to a severe refutation of some strictures upon him, published in the public papers in 1769, he was attacked by one John Robinson, a commissioner of the customs, in a coffee-house in Boston, and in a general affray was cruelly wounded ; from the effects of which he never recovered. His wounds did not prove mortal, but his reason was shattered, and his great usefulness to his coun-try destroyed. He gained heavy damages for the assault ; but in an interval of returning reason he forgave his destroyer and remitted the judgment. He lived until May 28, 1783. On that day, during a heavy thunder-storm, he, with a greater part of the family with whom he resided, had entered the house to wait until the shower should have passed. Otis, with his cane in one hand, stood against the part of a door which opened into the front entry, and was in the act of telling the assembled group a story, when an explosion took place, which seemed to shake the solid earth, and he fell without a struggle, or an utterance, instantaneously dead. He had often expressed a desire to die as he did. In one of his lucid intervals, a few weeks previous to his death, he said to his sister: "I hope, when God Almighty, in his righteous providence, shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning." He lived to see the Independence of the Colonies, but never fully to enjoy it. " When the glorious work which he begun, Shall stand the most complete beneath the sun ; When peace shall come to crown the grand design, His eyes shall live to see the work Divine — The heavens shall then his generous ' spirit claim In storms as loud as his immortal fame ! ' Hark ! the deep thunders echo round the skies ! On wings of flame the eternal errand flies ; One chosen, charitable bolt is sped — And Otis mingles with the glorious dead." — Dawes. THE WEITS OF ASSISTANCE. Mat it Please totjh Honoes : I was de-sired by one of the Court to look into the books, and consider the question now before them concerning Writs of Assistance. I have accordingly considered it, and now appear not only in obedience to your order, but like-wise in behalf of the inhabitants of this town, who have presented another petition, and out of regard to the liberties of the subject. And I take this opportunity to declare, that whether under a fee or not, (for in such a cause as this 1 despise a fee,) I wiU to my dying day oppose with all the powers and faculties God has given me, aU such instruments of slavery on the one hand, and villany on the other, as this writ of assistance is. It appears to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an English law book. I THE WEITS OF ASSISTANCE. mnst therefore beg your honors' patience and attention to the whole range of an argument, that may perhaps appear nncommon in many things, as well as to points of learning that are more remote and unusual : that the whole ten-dency of my design may the more easily be per-ceived, the conclusions better descend, and the force of them be better felt. I shall not think much of my pains- in this cause, as I engaged in it from principle. I was solicited to argue this cause as Advocate General ; and because I would not, I have been charged with desertion from my office.* To this charge I can give a very sufficient answer. I renounced that office, and I argue this cause from the same principle ; and I argue it with the greater pleasure, as it is in favor of British liberty, at a time when we hear the greatest monarch upon earth declaring from his throne that he glories in the name of Briton, and that the privileges of his people are dearer to him than the most valuable prerogatives of his crown ; and as it is in opposition to a kind of power, the exercise of which in former periods of history, cost one King of England his head, and another his throne. I have taken more pains in this cause than I ever will take again, although my engaging in this and another popular cause has raised much resentment. But I think I can sincerely declare, that I cheerfully submit myself to every odious name for con-science' sake ; and from my soul I despise all those, whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The only principles of public conduct, that are wor-thy of a gentleman or a man, are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. These manly sentiments, in private life, make the good citizen ; in public life, the patriot and the hero. I do not say, that when Ijrought to the test, I shall be invincible. I pray God I may never be brought to the mel-ancholy trial, but if ever I should, it will be then known how far I can reduce to practice principles which I know to be founded in truth. In the mean time I will proceed to the subject of this writ. Your honors will find in the old books con-cerning the office of a justice of the peace, pre-cedents of general warrants to search suspected houses. But in more modern books, you will find only special warrants to search such and such houses, specially named, in which the complainant has before sworn that he suspects his goods are concealed ; and will find it ad-judged, that special warrants only are legal. In the same manner I rely on it, that the writ prayed for in this petition, being general, is illegal. It is a power that places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer. * Otis had lately been occupying the office of Advocate General of the Crown, and had resigned because "he be-lieved these writs to be illegal and tyrannical," and would not prostitute his office to the support of an oppressive act. I say I admit that special -writa of assistance, to search special places, may be granted to certain persons on oath ; but I deny that the writ now prayed for can be granted, for I beg leave to make some observations on the writ itself, be-fore I proceed to other acts of Parliament. In the first place, the writ is universal, being directed " to all and singular justices, sherifis, constables, and all other officers and subjects ; " so that, in short, it is directed to every subject in the king's dominions. Every one with this writ may be a tyrant ; if this commission be legal, a tyrant in a legal manner, also, may con-trol, imprison, or murder any one within the realm. In the next place, it is perpetual, there is no retnrn. A man is accountable to no per-son for his doings. Every man may reign secure in his petty tyranny, and spread terror and desolation around him, until the trump of the archangel shall excite difierent emotions in his soul. In the third place, a person with this writ, in the daytime, may enter all houses, shops, &c., at will, and command all to assist him. Fourthly, by this writ, not only depu-ties, &c., but even their menial servants, are allowed to lord it over us. What is this but to have the curse of Canaan with a witness on us ; to be the servant of servants, the most despica-ble of God's creation ? Now one of the most essential branches of English liberty is the free-dom of one's house. A man's house is his castle ; and whilst he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle. This writ, if it should be declared legal, would totally an-nihilate this privilege. Custom-house officers may enter our houses when they please ; we are commanded to permit their entry. Their menial servants may enter, may break locks, bars, and every thing in their way : and whe-ther they break through malice or revenge, no man, no court can inquire. Bare suspicion without oath is sufficient. This wanton exer-cise of this power is not a chimerical suggestion of a heated brain. I will mention some facts. Mr. Pew had one of these writs, and when Mr. Ware succeeded him, he endorsed this writ over to Mr. Ware : so that, these writs are negotia-ble from one officer to another ; and so your honors have no opportunity of judging the persons to whom this vast power is delegated. Another instance is this : Mr. Justice Walley had called this same Mr. Ware before him, by a constable, to answer for a breach of tlie sab-bath- day acts, or that of profane swearing. As soon as he had finished, Mr. Ware asked him if he had done. He replied. Yes. Well then, said Mr. Ware, I will show you a little of my power. I command you to permit me to search your house for uncustomed goods; and went on to search the house from the garret to the cellar ; and then served the constable in the same manner ! But to show another absurdity in this writ, if it should be established, I insist upon it every person, by the 14th Charles Se-cond, has this power as well as the custom-house oncers. The words are, "it shall be 6 JAMES OTIS. lawful for any person or persons authorized, &c." What a scene does this open! Every-man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wan-tonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defence ; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in tumult and in blood. The summary of this speech can be best, and can now be only given in the words of John Adams, who divides it into five parts : 1. "He began with an exordium, containing an apology for his resignation of the ofiice of Advocate General in the Court ofAdmiralty ; and for his appearance in that cause in opposition to the Crown, and in favor of the town of Bos-ton, and the merchants of Boston and Salem. 2. "A dissertation on the rights of man in a state of nature. He asserted that every man, merely natural, was an independent sovereign, subject to no law but the law written on his heart, and revealed to him by his Maker, in the constitution of his nature, and the inspiration of his understanding and his conscience. His right to his life, his liberty, no created being could rightfully contest. Nor was his right to his property less incontestable. The club that he had snapped from a tree, for a staff or for defence, was his own. His bow and arrow were his own ; if by a pebble he had killed a partridge or a squirrel, it was his own. No creature, man or beast, had a right to take it from him. If he had taken an eel, or a smelt, or a sculpion, it was his property. In short, he sported upon this topic with so much wit and humor, and at the same time with so much in-disputable truth and reason, that he was not less entertaining than instructive. He asserted that these rights were inherent and inalienable. That they never could be surrendered or alien-ated, but by idiots or madmen, and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were void, and not obliga-tory, by all the laws of God and man. Nor were the poor negroes forgotten. Not a Qua-ker in Philadelphia, or Mr. Jefferson in Vir-ginia, ever asserted the rights of negroes in stronger terms. Young as I was, and ignorant as I was, I shuddered at the doctrine he taught ; and I have all my life shuddered, and still shudder, at the consequences that may be drawn from such premises. Shall we say, that the rights of masters and servants clash, and can be decided only by force ? I adore the idea of gradual abolitions! but who shall decide how fast or how slowly these abolitions shall be made ? 3. "From individual independence he pro-ceeded to association. If it was inconsistent with the dignity of human nature to say that men were gregarious animals, like wild geese, it surely could offend no delicacy to say they were social animals by nature ; that there were natural sympathies, and above all, the sweet attraction of the sexes, which must soon draw them together in little groups, and by degrees in larger congregations, for mutual assistance and defence. And this must have happened before any formal covenant, by express words or signs, was concluded. When general councils and deliberations commenced, the objects could be no other than the mutual defence and secu-rity of. every individual for his life, his liberty, and his property. To suppose them to have surrendered these in any other way than by equal rules and general consent, was to suppose them idiots or madmen, whose acts were never binding. To suppose them surprised by fraud, or compelled by force into any other compact, such fraud and such force could confer no obli-gation. Every man had a right to trample it under foot whenever he pleased. In short, he asserted these rights to be derived only from nature, and the author of nature; that they were inherent, inalienable, and indefeasible by any laws, pacts, contracts, covenants, or stipu-lations, which man could devise. 4. " These principles and these rights were wrought into the English constitution, as fun-damental laws. And under this head he went back to the old Saxon laws, and to Magna Charta, and the fifty confirmations of it in Par-liament, and the executions ordained against the violators of it, and the national vengeance which had been taken on them from time to time, down to the Jameses and Charleses ; and to the position of rights and the bill of rights, and the revolution. He asserted, that the se-curity of these rights to life, liberty and prop-erty, had been the object of all those struggles against arbitrary power, temporal and spiritual, civil and political, military and ecclesiastical, in every age. He asserted, that our ancestors, as British subjects, and we, their descendants, as British subjects, were entitled to all those rights, by the British constitution, as well as by the law of nature, and our provincial char-acter, as much as any inhabitant of London or Bristol, or any part of England ; and were not to be cheated out of them by any phantom of 'virtual representation,' or any other fiction of law or politics, or any monkish trick of de-ceit and hypocrisy. 5. "He then examined the acts of trade, one by one, and demonstrated, that if they were considered as revenue laws, they destroyed aU our security of property, liberty, and life, every right of nature, and the English constitution, and the charter of the province. Here he considered the distinction between ' external and internal taxes,' at that time a popular and commonplace distinction. But he asserted that there was no such distinction in theory, or upon any principle but 'necessity.' The necessity that the commerce of the empire should be under one direction, was obvious. The Americans had been so sensible of this ne-cessity, that they had connived at the distinc-tion between external and internal taxes, and had submitted to the acts of trade as regula-tions of commerce, but never as taxations, or THE STUDY OF THE LAW. revenue laws. Nor had the British govern-ment, till now, ever dared to attempt to en-force them as taxations or revenue laws. They had lain dormant in that character for a cen-tury almost. The navigation act he allowed to be binding upon us, because we had consented to it by our own legislature. Here he gave a history of the navigation act of the first of Charles II., a plagiarism from Oliver Crom-well. This act had lain dormant for fifteen years. In 1675, after repeated letters and or-ders from the king. Governor Leverett very candidly informs his majesty that the law had not been executed, because it was thought un-constitutional ; Parliament not having authority over us." THE STUDY OF THE LAW. I shall always lament that I did not take a year or two further for more general inquiries in the arts and sciences before I sat down to the laborious study of the laws of my country. Early and short clerkships and a premature rushing into practice, without a competent knowledge in the theory of law, have blasted the hopes of (and ruined the expectations formed by the parents of) most of the students in the profession, who have fallen within my ob-servation for these ten or fifteen years past. I hold it to be of vast importance that a young man should be able to make some eclat at his opening, which it is in vain to expect from one under twenty-five : missing of this is very apt to discourage and dispirit him, and what is of worse consequence, may prevent the appli-cation of clients ever after. It has been ob-served before I was born, if a man don't obtain a character in any profession soon after his first appearance, he hardly will ever obtain one. The bulk of mankind, I need not inform you, who have conversed with, studied and found many of them out, are a gaping crew, and like little children and all other gazing creatures, won't look long upon one object which gives them pleasure ; much less wiU they seek for en-tertainment where they have been twice or thrice disappointed. The late eminent Mr. John Eeed, who, by some, has been perhaps justly esteemed the greatest common lawyer this continent ever saw, was, you know, many years a clergyman, and had attained the age of forty before he began the practice, if not before he began the study, of the law. Sir Peter King, formerly Lord High Chancellor of Eng-land, kept a grocer's shop till he was turned of thirty, then fell into an acquaintance with the immortal John Locke, who discovered a genius in him, advised him to books and assisted in his education ; after which he took to the study of the common law, and finally attained to the highest place to which his royal master could advance a lawyer. I think I have been told the Lord Chief Justice Pemberton, or some one of the Chief Justices of England, was a bankrupt, and in the Fleet prison for debt, before he even dreamed of being a lawyer. I mention these instances, not as arguments to prove it would be most eligible to stay till thirty or forty, be-fore a man begins the study of a profession he is to live by ; but this inference I think very fairly follows, that those gentlemen availed themselves much of the ripeness of their judg-ments when they began this study, and made much swifter progress than a young man of twenty with all the genius in the world could do ; or they would have been approaching su-perannuation before they would be equipped with a suflicient degree of learning once to give hope for the success they found, and then such hope would vanish, unless they could get a new lease of life and understanding.* * This extract is taken from a letter addressed by James Otis to his father, in reiference to the legal education of his younger brother, Samuel Allyne Otis, who, in later life, be-came Secretary of the Senate of the United States. PATRICK HENRY. Tms distinguished " orator of nature," was born at Studley, in the county of Hanover, and Colony of Virginia, His father emigrated to America, from Aberdeen, Scotland, in quest of fortune, sometimfi prior to 1730 ; and his mother, who belonged to the family of Winstons, was a native of the county in which he was born. On the maternal side, he seems to have belonged to an oratorical race. His uncle, William Winston, is said to have been highly gifted with that peculiar cast of eloquence for which Mr. Henry became afterwards so justly celebrated. An anecdote of this gentleman's rhetorical powers is recorded by the eloquent biographer of Mr. Henry. During the French and Indian war, soon after the defeat of the unfortunate Braddock, when the militia were marched to the frontiers of Virginia against the enemy, William Win-ston was the lieutenant of a company. The men, who were indifferently clothed, without tents, and exposed to the rigor and inclemency of the weather, discovered great aversion to the ser-vice, and were anxious and even clamorous to return to their families ; when Winston, mounting a stump, addressed them with such keenness of invective, and declaimed with such force of eloquence, on liberty and patriotism, that when he concluded, the general cry was, " Let us march on ; lead us against the enemy ! " and they were now willing and anxious to encounter all those difficulties and dangers which, but a few moments before, had almost produced a mutiny. The youth of Mr. Henry gave no presage of his future greatness. He was idle and indolent ; playing truant from his school, and spending the greater portion of his time in the sports of the field ; often sitting whole days upon the margin of some stream, waiting for a bite, or even " one glorious nibble." The lamentable effects of this idleness clung to him through life. After pass-ing one year as merchant's clerk, young Henry, at the age of sixteen, was established in trade by his father, but " through laziness, the love of music, the charms of the chase, and a readiness to trust every one,'''' he soon became bankrupt. One advantage, however, he derived from this experiment ; it was in the study of humar, nature. AH his customers underwent his scru-tiny, not with reference to their integrity or solvency, but in relation to the structure of their minds and opinions. In this school, it is the opinion of his biographer, Mr. Henry was prepared for his future life. " For those continual efforts to render himself intelligible to his plain and unlettered hearers, on subjects entirely new to them, taught him that clear and simple style which forms the best vehicle of thought to a popular assembly ; while his attempts to interest and affect them, in order that he might hear from them the echo of nature's voice, instructed him in those topics of persuasion by which men are most certainly to be moved, and in the kind of imagery and structure of language which were the best fitted to strike and agitate their hearts." At the early age of eighteen, Mr. Henry was married to Miss Shelton, the daughter of a poor but honest farmer in the neighborhood of his birthplace. The young couple settled on a small farm, and " with the assistance of one or two slaves, Mr. Henry had to delve the earth for his subsistence." His want of agricultural. skill and natural aversion to aU kinds of systematic labor, closed his career as a farmer in two years, when he again commenced and again failed in K -^ ^'^S ir ^ JachruOTh II Jt IJ A^ppleton & C* patkick: henry, g mercantile pursuits. Unsuccessful in every thing he had attempted to procure himself and his family subsistence, he, as a last effort, determined to make a trial of the law. To the study of that profession, " which is said to require the lucubrations of twenty years, Mr. Henry devoted not more than six weeks ; " and at the age of twenty-four he was admitted to the bar. His practice for the first three or four years yielded him but a very scanty return, during which time he performed the duties of an assistant to his father-in-law at a country inn. The celebrated controversy,* in 1763, between the clergy and the legislature of Virginia, touching the stipend of the former, was the occasion on which Mr. Henry's genius first broke forth. "On this first trial of his strength," says Mr. Wirt, "he rose very awkwardly, and fal-tered much in his exordium. The people hung their heads at so unpromising a commencement ; the clergy were observed to exchange sly looks with each other ; and his father is described as having almost sunk with confusion from his seat. But these feelings were of short duration, and soon gave place to others, of a very different character. For, now were these wonderful faculties which he possessed for the first time developed; and now was first witnessed that mysterious and almost supernatural transformation of appearance, which the fire of his own elo-quence never failed to work in him. For, as his mind rolled along and began to glow from its own action, all the exunios of the clown seemed to shed themselves spontaneously. His attitude, by degrees, became erect and lofty. The spirit of his genius awakened all his features. His countenance shone with a nobleness and grandeur which it had never before exhibited. There was a lightning in his eyes which seemed to rive the spectator. His action became graceful, bold, and commanding ; and in the tones of his voice, but more especially in his emphasis, there was a peculiar charm, a magic, of which any one who ever heard him will speak as soon as he is named, but of which no one can give any adequate description. They can only say that it struck upon the ear and upon the heart, in a manner which language cannot tell. Add to aU these his wonder-working fancy, and the peculiar phraseology in which he clothed its images; for he painted to the heart with a force that almost petrified it. In the language of those who heard him on this occasion, ' he made their blood run cold, and their hair to rise on end.' " It will not be difficult for any one who ever heard this most extraordinary man, to believe the whole account of this transaction which is given by his surviving hearers ; and from their ac-count, the court-house of Hanover County must have exhibited, on this occasion, a scene as pic-turesque as has ever been witnessed in real life. They say that the people, whose countenance had fallen as he arose, had heard but a very few sentences before they began to look up ; then to look at each other with surprise, as if doubting the evidence of their own senses ; then, at-tracted by some strong gesture, struck by some majestic attitude, fascinated by the spell of his eye, the charm of his emphasis, and the varied and commanding expression of his countenance, they could look away no more. In less than twenty minutes they might be seen in every part of the house, on every bench, in every window, stooping forward from their stands, in death-like silence ; their features fixed in amazement and awe ; aU their senses listening and riveted upon the speaker, as if to catch the last strain of some heavenly visitant. The mockery of the clergy was soon turned into alarm ; their triumph into confusion and despair ; and at one burst of his rapid and overwhelming invective, they fled from the bench in precipitation and terror. As for the father, such was his surprise, such his amazement, such his rapture, that, forgetting where he was, and the character which he was filling, tears of ecstasy streamed down his cheeks, without the power or inclination to repress them. The jury seem to have been completely be-wildered ; for, thoughtless even of the admitted right of the plaintiff, they had scarcely left the bar when they returned with a verdict of one penny damages. A motion was made for a new trial ; but the court, too, had now lost the equipoise of their judgment, and overruled the motion by a unanimous vote. The verdict and judgment overruling the motion, were followed by re-doubled acclamations from within and without the house. The people, who had with difficulty kept their hands off their champion, from the moment of closing his harangue, no sooner saw 'the fate of the cause finally sealed, than they seized him at the bar, and in spite of his own ex-ertions, and the continued cry of ' order ' from the sheriffs and the court, they bore him out of The points in ttia controversy are lucidly laid down in Wirt's Life of Henry. 10 PATKICK HENKY. the coTirt-liouse, and raising him on their shoulders, carried him about the yard, in a kind of electioneering triumph." His success in the "parson's cause" introduced him at once to an extensive practice; but he never could confine himself to the arduous studies necessary for a thorough knowledge of the law: the consequence was, on questions merely legal his inferiors in talents frequently em-barrassed him, and he was required to use all the resources of his master-mind to maintain the position he had reached. In 1765, as a member of the House of Burgesses, Mr. Henry in-troduced his resolutions against the Stamp Act, which proved the opening of the American Revolution in the colony of Virginia. It was in the midst of the debate upon those resolutions, that he " exclaimed, in a voice of thunder and with the look of a god, ' Csesar had his Brutus — Charles the First his Cromwell—and George the Third—('Treason!' cried the Speaker: ' treason ! treason ! ' echoed from every part of the house. Henry faltered not for an instant, but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the Speaker an eye of the most determined fire, finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) — may profit hy their example. If this be treason, make the most of it." * After passing several years successfully upon the legislative floor, Mr. Henry returned to the practice of his profession. On the 4th of September, 17T4, the first Congress met in Carpenter's Hall, at Philadelphia. This assembly was composed of the most eminent men of the several colonies, on the wisdom of whose councils was staked the liberties of the colonists and their posterity. The first meeting is described as "awfully solemn. The object which had called them together was of incal-culable magnitude." After the organization, in the midst of a deep and death-like silence, every member reluctant to open a business so fearfully momentous, " Mr. Henry rose slowly, as if borne down by the weight of the subject, and, after faltering, according to his habit, through a most impressive exordium, he launched gradually into a recital of the colonial wrongs. Eising, as he advanced, with the grandeur of his subject, and glowing at length with all the majesty and expectation of the occasion, his speech seemed more than that of mortal man. There was no rant, no rhapsody, no labor of the understanding, no straining of the voice, no confusion of the utterance. His countenance was erect, his eye steady, his action noble, his enunciation clear and firm, his mind poised on its centre, his views of his subject comprehensive and great, and his imagination corruscating with a magnificence and a variety which struck even that assembly with amazement and awe. He sat down amid murmurs of astonishment and applause ; and as he had been before proclaimed the greatest orator of Virginia, he was now, on every hand, admitted to be the first orator of America." No report of this speech has been preserved. That Congress adjourned in October, and Mr. Henry returned to his home. On the 20th of March following (1775), the Virginia Convention, which had met the previous year at "Williams-bnrgh, then the capital of the State, convened at Eichmond. Of this body Mr. Henry was a member. Although the colonies were then laboring under severe grievances, and at the same time were insisting with great firmness upon their constitutional rights, yet they gave the most explicit and solemn pledge of their faith and true allegiance to His Majesty King George the Third, avowed to support him with their lives and fortunes, and were ardent in their wishes for a return of that friendly intercourse from which the colonies had derived so much benefit. These were the sentiments held by those eminent statesmen and patriots on the opening of that convention ; but with Mr. Henry it was different. In his judgment, all hopes of a reconciliation were gone. Firm in this opinion, he introduced his celebrated resolutions advocating prepara-tion for a military defence of the colony. Those resolutions he sustained in a powerful speech, and they were adopted ; after which a committee, of which Mr. Henry and George Washington were members, was appointed to prepare and report a plan to carry into effect the meaning of the resolutions. After the report was made and the plan adopted, the convention adjourned. On the 20th of April, 1775, in the dead of the night. Lord Dunmore sent one of his naval captains, with a body of marines, into the town of "Williamsburgh, carried off twenty barrels of * A very curious parallel to this scene occurred In the Legislature of Massachusetts, three years prior to this, on the occasion of the presentation of Otls's remonstrance against the governor and council's mating or increasing estahlishments without the consent of the House. A thrilling account of those proceedings is given in Tudor's Life of James Otis. PATEICK HENEY. ll powder from the public magazine, and placed them on board the armed schooner Magdalen, lying at anchor in James Eiver. The people of the town on learning of the affair early the next morning, became highly exasperated ; a considerable body of them taking up arms, determined to compel a restoration of the powder. The council convened, and addressed a letter to Lord Dunmore, asking for its return ; but it was not until the 2d day of May, when Mr. Henry, hav-ing convened the Independent company of Hanover, by request, addressed them, and being appointed their leader, marched against his lordship, and obtained " three hundred and thirty pounds," the estimated value of the powder. " Thus, the same man, whose genius had in the year 1765 given the first political impulse to the Revolution, had now the additional honor of heading the first military movement in Virginia, in support of the same cause." On the meet-ing of the Virginia convention in 1776, after the declaration of rights was published, and a plan of government established, Mr. Henry was elected governor of the colony. His career in this ofiBce is not marked by any extraordinary operations of his own. Lord Dunmore had evacuated the territory of the colony, and the military operations against the British Crown, which had been carried on during the previous year, were brought to a close. In 1777, and again in 1778, Mr. Henry was re-elected to the office of governor ; declining a third re-election in 1779, which had been tendered him by the Assembly. The first wife of Mr. Henry having died in the year 1775, he sold the farm on which he had been residing in Hanover county, and purchased several thousand acres of valuable land in the county of Henry ; a county which had been erected during his administration as governor ; and which had taken its name from him, as did afterwards its neighboring county of Patrick. In 1777 he married Dorothea, the daughter of Mr. Nathaniel W. Dandridge, with whom he retired to his new estate ; and there resumed the practice of the law, confining himself mainly to the duties of counsellor and advocate, and leaving the technical duties to the care of his junior associates. Shortly after the termination of Mr. Henry's office as governor, he was elected to the State Assembly, in which body he remained until the close of his active life ; taking a prominent part in its proceedings, and distinguishing himself by his liberality of feeling and soundness of judg-ment, not less than by the superiority of his powers in debate. On the close of the Revolution, he proposed in the Assembly, that the loyalists who had left the State during the war, should be permitted to return. This proposition was resisted, but through the influence of Mr. Henry's " overwhelming eloquence," was finally adopted. In the same high-toned spirit he supported and carried, although vigorously opposed, a proposal for removing the restraints upon British commerce. " Why should we fetter commerce ? " said he ; "a man in chains droops and bows to the earth ; his spirits are broken ; but let him twist the fetters from his legs and he will stand upright. Fetter not Commerce, Sir ; let her be as free as air. She will range the whole creation, and return on the wings of the four winds of heaven to bless the land with plenty." In the year 1784, Mr. Henry introduced into the Assembly, a " bill for the encouragement of marriages with the Indians." The frontier settlements had been subject to the continual depredations of the Indians. Treaties were of no avail ; and in this bill, Mr. Henry suggested, as a means to prevent these troubles, intermarriages of the whites and Indians ; and held out pecuniary bounty, to be repeated at the birth of every child of such marriages ; exemption from taxes, and the free use of an educational institution, to be established at the expense of the State. This bill was rejected. In November of the same year, Mr. Henry was again elected Governor of Virginia ; in which oflSce he remained until 1786, when he was compelled by poverty to resign his office, and again return to the practice of the law. However, he did not remain long out of public life. In 1788 he was a member of the convention of Virginia, which adopted the new federal constitution. In this Assembly he opposed the adoption ; because, he contended, it consolidated the States into one government, thereby destroying their individual sovereignty. His speeches on this occasion surpassed all his former efforts ; and they operated so powerfully that but a small majority voted for the new constitution. Declining a re-election to the Assembly in 1791, Mr. Henry retired from public life. Four years after President "Washington offered him the important station of Secretary of State. This !ie declined, preferring to remain in retirement. Again, in 1796, he was elected Governor of 12 PATEICK HEFEY. the State ; this he also declined. In the year 1797 his health began to fail, and those energies which had enabled him to withstand the power of Great Britain, and urge onward the glorious Ee-volution, existed no longer in their original force. The uncertainty of the political issues at this period bore sorely and heavily upon Mr. Henry's sinking spirits. The clash of opposing parties agonized his mind. He was alarmed at the hideous scenes of the revolution then enacting in France, and apprehensive that these scenes were about being enacted over again in his own country, "In a mind thus prepared," says his biographer, "the strong and animated resolutions of the Virginia Assembly in 1798, in relation to the alien and sedition laws, conjured up the most frightful visions of civil war, disunion, blood and anarchy ; and under the impulse of these phantoms, to make what Jis considered a virtuous effort for his country, he presented himself in Charlotte county, as a candidate for the House of Delegates, at the spring election of 1799." On the day of the election, before the polls were opened, he addressed the people of the county to the following effect : " He told them that the late proceedings of the Virginia Assembly had filled him with apprehension and alarm ; that they had planted thorns upon his pillow ; that they had drawn him from that happy retirement which it had pleased a bountiful Providence to bestow, and in which he had hoped to pass, in quiet, the remainder of his days ; that the State had quitted the sphere in which she had been placed by the constitution ; and in daring to pro-nounce upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her jurisdiction in a manner not war-ranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming to every considerate man ; that such opposition, on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the general government, must beget their enforcement by military power ; that this would probably produce civil war ; civU war, foreign alliances ; and that foreign alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers called ui. He conjured the people to pause and consider well, before they rushed into such a desperate condition, from which there could be no retreat. He painted to their imaginations, Washington, at the head of a numerous and well-appointed army, inflicting upon them military execution : 'and where (he asked) are our resources to meet such a conflict ? Where is the citizen of America who will dare to lift his hand against the father of his country ? ' A drunken man in the crowd threw up his arm, and exclaimed that ' he dared to do it.' ' No,' answered Mr. Henry, rising aloft in all his majesty: ^youdare not do it: in such a parricidal attempt, the steel would drop from your nerveless arm!'' Mr. Henry, proceeding in his address to the people, asked, 'whether the county of Charlotte would have any authority to dispute an obedience to the laws of Vir-ginia ; and he pronounced Virginia to be to the Union, what the county of Charlotte was to her. " Having denied the right of a State to decide upon the constitutionality of federal laws, he added, that perhaps it might be necessary to say something of the merits of the laws in question. His private opinion was, that they were ' good and proper.'' But, whatever might be their merits, it belonged to the people, who held the reins over the head of Congress, and to them alone, to say whether they were acceptable or otherwise, to Virginians ; and that this must be done by way of petition. That Congress were as much our representatives as the Assembly, and had as good a right to our confidence. He had seen, with regret, the unlimited power over the purse and sword consigned to the general government ; but that he had been overruled, and it was now necessary to submit to the constitutional exercise of that power. 'If,' said he, 'I am asked what is to be done, when a people feel themselves intolerably oppressed, my answer is ready : Overturn the government. But do not, I beseech you, carry matters to this length, with-out provocation. Wait at least until some infringement is made upon your rights, and which cannot otherwise be redressed ; for if ever you recur to another change, you may bid adieu for ever to representative government. You can never exchange the present government but for a monarchy. If the administration have done wrong, let us all go wrong together rather than split into factions, which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs. Let us pre-serve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare to in-vade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.' He concluded, by declaring his design to exert himself in the endeavor to allay the heart-burnings and jeal-ousies which had been fomented, in the State legislature ; and he fervently prayed, if U was THE FEDEEAL CONSTITUTION. 13 deemed unworthy to effect it, that it might be reserved to some other aad abler hand, to extend this blessing over the community." * This was the last effort of Mr. Henry's eloquence. The polls were opened after he had concluded this speech, and he was elected : but -ho never took his seat. His health had been declining gra-dually for two years, when, on the sixth day of June, 1799, he died, full of honors—as a states-man, orator and patriot, unsurpassed and uneclipsed. THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.t The Preamble and the two first sections of the first article of the Constitution being under consideration, Mr. Henry thus addressed the convention 4 Mr. Chaiemah : The public mind, as well as my own, is extremely uneasy at the proposed change of government. Give me leave to form one of the number of those, who wish to be thoroughly acquainted with the reasons of this perilous and uneasy situation, and why we are brought hither to decide on this great national question. I consider myself as the servant of the people of this commonwealth, as a sentinel over their rights, liberty, and happiness. I represent their feelings when I say, that they are exceedingly uneasy, being brought from that state of full security, which they enjoy, to * Experience had taught Mr. Henry that in opposing tho adoption of the constitution, he had mistaken the source of public danger ; that the power of the states was yet too great, in times of discord and war, for the power of the Union. The constitution, moreover, was the law of the land, and as such, he had sworn to obey it. He had seen it administered conscientiously, and for the good of the whole; he had, since Its adoption, never leagued himself with the factions which embarrassed its operations. With parties, as such, he had no connection, and in this crisis he could come forward with clean bands tu its support. — Administrations of Washington amd Adorns ; Tuckefs Life ofJefferson. t So general was the conviction that public welfare re-quired a government of more extensive powers than those vested in the general government by the articles of confed-eration, that in May, 1787, a convention composed of dele-gates from all the States in the Union, with the exception of Ehode Island, assembled at Philadelphia, to take the subject under consideration. This convention continued its sessions with closed doors until the seventeenth of the following September, when the Federal Constitution was promulgated. The convention resolved, "That the constitution be laid be-fore the United States, in Congress assembled, and that it is the opinion of this convention that it should afterwards be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof, for their assent and ratification; " and in conformity with this recommendation. Congress, on the twenty-eighth of the same month, p.issed a resolution di-recting that tho constitution should be submitted to conven-tions, to be assembled in the several States of the Union. The conventions subsequently assembled, and the expediency of adopting the constitution was ably and eloquently dis-cussed. i This speech was delivered in the Virginia convention, on the fourth of June, 1783. the present delusive appearance of things. Be-fore the meeting of the late Federal convention at Philadelphia, a general peace, and an univer-sal tranquillity prevailed in this country, and the minds of our citizens were at perfect re-pose; but since that period, they are exceed-ingly uneasy and disquieted. When I wished for an appointment to this convention, my mind was extremely agitated for the situation of pub-lic affairs. I conceive the republic to be in ex-treme danger. If our situation be thus uneasy, whence has arisen this fearful jeopardy ? It arises from this fatal system ; it arises from a proposal to cliange our government—a propo-sal that goes to the utter annihilation of the most solemn engagements of the States—a pro-posal of establishing nine States into a confede-racy, to the eventual exclusion of four States. It goes to the annihilation of those solemn treaties we have formed with foreign nations. The present circumstances of France, the good offices rendered us by that kingdom, require our most faithful and most punctual adherence to our treaty with her. We are in alliance with the Spaniards, the Dutch, the Prussians: those treaties bound us as thirteen St.ues, confede-rated together. Yet here is a proposal to sever that confederacy. Is it possible that we shall abandon all our treaties and national engage-ments? And for what? I expected to have heard the reasons of an event so unexpected to my mind, and many others. Was our civil polity, or public justice, endangered or sapped ? Was the real existence of the country threat-ened, or was this preceded by a mournful pro-gression of events? This proposal of altering our federal government is of a most alarming nature : make the best of this new government —say it is composed of any thing but inspira-tion— you ought to be extremely cautious, watchful, jealous of your liberty; for, instead of securing your rights, you may lose them for ever. If a wrong step be now made, the re-public may be lost for ever. If this new govern-ment will not come up to the expectation of the people, and they should be disappointed, their liberty will be lost, and tyranny must and will arise. I repeat it again, and I beg gentlemen to consider, that a wrong step, made now, wUl plunge us into misery, and our republic will be lost. It will be necessary for this convention to have a faithful historical detail of the facts that preceded the session of the federal conven- 14 PATEIGK HENRY. tion, and the reasons that actuated its members in proposing an entire alteration of government —and to demonstrate the dangers that awaited ns. If they were of such awful magnitude as to warrant a proposal so extremely perilous as this, I must assert that this convention has an absolute right to a thorough discovery of every circumstance relative to this great event. And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who composed a part of the late federal convention. I am sure they were fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated government, instead of a confede-ration. That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear ; and the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very striking. I have the highest veneration for those gentle-men ; but, sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, " We, the People ? " My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious so-licitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, who authorized them to speak the language of, "We, the People," instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of a confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consoli-dated national government of the people of all the States. I have the highest respect for those gentlemen who formed the convention; and were some of them not here, I would express some testimonial of esteem for them. America had on a former occasion put the utmost confi-dence in them; a confidence which was well plaped; and I am sure, sir, I would give up any thing to them ; I would cheerfully confide in them as my representatives. But, sir, on this great occasion, I would demand the cause of their conduct. Even from that illustrious man, who saved us by his valor, I would have a reason for his conduct ; that liberty which he has given us by his valor, tells me to ask this reason, and sure I am, were he here, he would give us that reason : but there are other gentle-men here, who can give us this information. The people gave them no power to use their name. That they exceeded their power is per-fectly clear. It is not mere curiosity that actu-ates me ; I wish to hear the real, actual, exist-ing danger, which should lead us to take those steps so dangerous in my conception. Disor-ders have arisen in other parts of America, but here, sir, no dangers, no insurrection or tumult, has happened ; every thing has been calm and tranquil. But notwithstanding this, we are wandering on the great ocean of human aifairs. I see no landmark to guide us. We are run-ning we know not whither. Difference in opinion has gone to a degree of inflammatory resentment, in different parts of the country, which has been occasioned by this perilous in-novation. The federal convention ought to have amended the old system; for this purpose they were solely delegated: the object of their mission extended to no other consideration. You must therefore forgive the solicitation of one unworthy member, to know what danger could have arisen under the present confedera-tion, and what are the causes of this proposal to change our government. This inquiry was answered by an eloquent and powerful speech from Mr. Eandolph ; and the debate passed into other hands until the next day, when Mr. Henry continued : Me. Chaieman: I am much obliged to the very worthy gentleman* for his encomium. I wish I were possessed of talents, or possessed of any thing, that might enable me to elucidate this great subject. I am not free from suspi-cion : I am apt to entertain doubts : I rose yes-terday to ask a question, which arose in my own mind. When I asked that question, I thought the meaning of my interrogation was obvious : the fate of this question and of Amer-ica, may depend on this. Have they said, We, the States ? Have they made a proposal of a compact between States? If they had, this would be a confederation : it is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The whole question turns, sir, on that poor little thing — the expression. We, the People, instead of the States of America. I need not take much pains to show, that the principles of this sys-tem are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. Is this a monarchy, like England a compact between prince and people; with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the latter ? Is this a confederacy, like Holland —an association of a number of independent States, each of which retains its individual sov-ereignty ? It is not a democracy, wherein the people retain all their rights securely. Had these principles been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this alarming transi-tion, from a confederacy to a consolidated gov-ernment. We have no detail of those great considerations which, in my opinion, ought to have abounded before we should recur to a government of this kind. Here is a revolution as radical as that which separated us from Great Britain. It is as radical, if in this transi-tion, our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the States relinquished. And cannot we plainly see that this is actually * General Lee, of Westmoreland, speaking in reference to Mr. Ilenry's opening speech, had remarked to the conven-tion, " I feel every power of my mind moved by the lan-guage of the honorable gentleman yesterday. The echit and brilliancy which have distinguished that gentleman, the honors witli which he has been dignified, and the brilliant talents which he has so ofte.i displayed, have attracted my respect and attention. On so important an occasion, and be-fore BO respectable a body, I expected a new display of his powers of oratory; but, instead of proceeding to investigate the merits of the new plan of government, the icorthy char ader informs us of horrors which he felt, of apprehensions in his mind, which made him tremblingly fearful of the fate of the commonwealth. Mr. Chairman, was it proper to appeal to the /ear of this House? The question before ns belongs to the judgment of this House. I trust he ia come to jttdge, and not to alarm." THE FEDEEAL CONSTITUTION. 16 the case ? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of free-men? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans? It is said eight States have adopted this plan. I de-clare that if twelve States and a half had adopt-ed it, I would, with manly firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured ; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government. Having premised these things, I shall, with the aid of my judgment and infor-mation, which I confess are not extensive, go into the discussion of this system more minute-ly. Is it necessary for your liberty, that you should abandon those great rights by the adop-tion of this system ? Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury, and the liberty of the press, necessary for your liberty ? Will the abandon-ment of your most sacred rights, tend to the security of your liberty ? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings—give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing else. But I am fearful I have lived long enough to become an old-fashioned fellow. Perhaps an invincible attachment to the dearest rights of man, may, in these refined, enlightened days, be deemed old-fashioned : if so, I am contented to be so. I say, the time has been when every pulse of my heart beat for American liberty, and which, I believe, had a counterpart in the breast of every true American. But suspicions have gone forth—suspicions of my integrity. It has been publicly reported that my professions are not real. Twenty-three years ago was I sup-posed a traitor to my country : I was then said to be a bane of sedition, because I supported the rights of my country : I may be thought suspicious, when I say our privileges and rights are in danger : but, sir, a number of the people of this country are weak enough to think these things are too true. I am happy to find that the gentlemen on the other side, declare they are groundless : but, sir, suspicion is a virtue, as long as its object is the preservation of the public good, and as long as it stays within pro-per bounds : should it fall on me, I am content-ed : conscious rectitude is a powerful consola-tion: I trust there are many who think my professions for the public good to be real. Let your suspicion look to both sides: there are many on the other side, who, possibly, may have been persuaded of the necessity of these measures, which I conceive to be dangerous to your liberty. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who ap-proaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it, but downright force. When-ever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. I am answered by gentlemen, that though I may speak of terrors, yet the fact is, that we are surrounded by none of the dangers I apprehend. I conceive this new government to be one of those dangers : it has produced those horrors, which distress many of our best citizens. We are come hither to preserve the poor commonwealth of Virginia, if it can be possibly done : something must be done to pre-serve your liberty and mine. The confedera-tion, this same despised government, merits, in my opinion, the highest encomium : it carried us through a long and dangerous war : it ren-dered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful nation : it has secured us a territory greater than any European monarch possesses: and shall a government which has been thus strong and vigorous, be accused of imbecility, and abandoned for want of energy ? Consider what you are about to do, before you part with this government. Take longer time in reckon-ing things : revolutions like this have happened in almost every country in Europe : similar ex-amples are to be found in ancient Greece and ancient Kome : instances of the people losing their liberty by their own carelessness and the ambition of a few. We are cautioned by the honorable gentleman who presides, against fac-tion and turbulence. I acknowledge that licen-tiousness is dangerous, and that it ought to be provided against : I acknowledge also the new form of government may eftectually prevent it : yet, there is another thing it will as eflfect-ually do : it will oppress and ruin the people. There are sufiicient guards placed against sedi-tion and licentiousness: for when power is given to this government to suppress these, or, for any other purpose, the language it assumes is clear, express, and unequivocal; but when this constitution speaks of privileges, there is an ambiguity, sir, a fatal ambiguity—an ambi-guity which is very astonishing. In the clause under consideration, there is the strangest lan-guage that I can conceive. I mean, when it says, that there shall not be more representa-tives than one for every 30,000. Now, sir, how ea'sy is it to evade this privilege ? " The num-ber shall not exceed one for every 30,000." This may be satisfied by one representative from each State. Let our numbers be ever so great, this immense continent may, by this artful expression, be reduced to have but thir-teen representatives. I confess this construc-tion is not natural ; but tlie ambiguity of the expression lays a good ground for a quarrel. Why was it not clearly and unequivocally ex-pressed, that they should be entitled to have one for every 30,000? This would have obvi-ated all disputes; and was this difiicult to be done? What is the inference ? When popula-tion increases, and a State shall send represent-atives in this proportion, Congress may remand them, because the right of liaving one for every 30,000 is not clearly expressed. This possibility of reducing the number to one for each State, approximates to probability by that other ex- 16 PATEICK HENET. pression, " but each State shall at least have one representative." Now is it not clear that, from the first expression, the number might be reduced so much, that some States should have no representative at all, were it not for the in-sertion of this last expression ? And as this is the only restriction upon them, we may fairly conclude that they may restrain the number to one from each State. Perhaps the same hor-rors may hang over my mind again. I shall be told I am continually afraid : but, sir, I have strong cause of apprehension. In some parts of the plan before you, the great rights of free-men are endangered, in other parts absolutely taken away. How does your trial by jury stand ? In civil cases gone—not sufficiently se-cured in criminal—this best privilege is gone. But we are told that we need not fear, because those in power being our representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in history, but I will sub-mit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny. Happy wiU you be, if you miss the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their oppressors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from them, have groaned under intolerable despotism ! Most of the human race are now in this deplorable con-dition. And those nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power and splendor, have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of their own foUy. While they acquired those visionary blessings, they lost their freedom. My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants. It is urged by some gentlemen, that this new plan will bring us an acquisition of strength ; an army, and the militia of the States. This is an idea extremely ridiculous: gentlemen cannot be in earnest. This acquisition will trample on your fallen liberty. Let my beloved Americans guard against that fatal lethargy that has per-vaded the universe. Have we the means of re-sisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress ? The honorable gentleman said, that great danger would ensue, if the convention rose without adopting this system. I ask, where is that danger? I see none. Other gentlemen have told us, within these walls, that the Union is gone—or, that the Union wiU be gone. Is not this trifling with the judgment of their fellow-citizens ? TUl they tell us the ground of their fears, I will consider them as imaginary. I rose to make inquiry where those dangers were ; they could make no answer : I believe I never shall have that answer. Is there a dis-position in the people of this country to revolt against the dominion of laws ? Has there been a single tumult in Virginia? Have not the people of Virginia, when laboring under the severest pressure of accumulated distresses. manifested the most cordial acquiescence in the execution of the laws? What could be more awful, than their unanimous acquiescence under general distresses ? Is there any revolution in Virginia? Whither is the spirit of America gone ? Whither is the genius of America fled? It was but yesterday, when our enemies marched in triumph through our country. Yet the peo-ple of tlais country could not be appalled by their pompous armaments : they stopped their career, and victoriously captured them : where is the peril now, compared to that ? Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for us, there is no real danger from Europe ; that coimtry is engaged in more ardu-ous business ; from that quarter, there is no cause of fear : you may sleep in safety for ever for them. Where is the danger ? If, sir, there was any, I would recur to the American spirit to defend us—that spirit which has enabled us to surmount the greatest difliculties : to that illustrious spirit I address my most fervent prayer, to prevent our adopting a system de-structive to liberty. Let not gentlemen be told, that it is not safe to reject this government. Wherefore is it not safe ? We are told there are dangers ; but those dangers are ideal ; they cannot be demonstrated. To encourage us to adopt it, they tell us that there is a plain, easy way of getting amendments. When I come to contemplate this part, I suppose that I am mad, or, that my countrymen are so. The way to amendment is, in my conception, shut. Let us consider this plain, easy way. " The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this constitution ; or, on the application of the legis-latures of two-thirds of the several Slates, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all in-tents and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress. Provided, that no amendment which may be made prior to the year 1808, shall, in any man-ner, aftect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article ; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffi-age in the Senate." Hence it ap-pears, that three-fourths of the States must ultimately agree to any amendments that may be necessary. Let us consider the consequences of this. However uncharitable it may appear, yet I must express my opinion, that the most unworthy characters may get into power and prevent the introduction of amendments. Let us suppose, (for the case is supposable, possible and probable,) that you happen to deal these powers to unworthy hands ; wiU they relinquish powers already in their possession, or agree to amendments ? Two-thirds of the Congress, or of the State legislatures, are necessary even to propose amendments. If one-third of these be unworthy men, they may prevent the applica- THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. IT tion for amendments ; but a destructive and mischievous feature is, that three-fourths of the State legislatures, or of the State conventions, must concur in the amendments when proposed. In such numerous bodies, there must necessarily be some designing, bad men. To suppose that so large a number as three-fourths of the States will concur, is to suppose that they will possess genius, intelligence and integrity, approaching to miraculous. It would, indeed, be miraculous, that they should concur in the same amend-ments, or, even in such as would bear some likeness to one another. For four of the small-est States, that do not collectively contain one-tenth part of the population of the United States, may obstruct the most salutary and necessary amendments. Nay, in these four states, six-tenths of the people may reject these amendments ; and suppose, that amendments shall be opposed to amendments, (which is highly probable,) is it possible, that three-fourths can ever agree to the same amend-ments? A bare majority in these four small States, may hinder the adoption of amendments ; so that we may fairly and justly conclude, that one-twentieth part of the American people may prevent the removal of the most grievous inconveniences and oppression, by refusing to accede to amendments. A trifling minority may reject the most salutary amendments. Is this an easy mode of securing the public liberty? It is, sir, a most fearful situation, when the most contemptible minority can prevent the alteration of the most oppressive government; for it may, in many respects, prove to be such. Is this the spirit of republi-canism ? What, sir, is the genius of democracy ? Let me read that clause of the BUI of Eights of Virginia which relates to this : 3d clause ; " That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the people, nation, or community. Of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best, which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of mal-adrainistration, and that whenever any go-vernment shall be found inadequate, or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitatile, unalienable and indefeasi-ble right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." This, sir, is the language of democracy—that a majority of the community have a right to alter their government when found to be oppressive: but how different is the genius of your new constitution from this ! How different from the sentiments of freemen, thai a contemptible minority can prevent the good of the majority! If then, gentlemen, standing on this ground, are come to that point, that they are willing to bind themselves and their posterity to be oppressed, I am amazed and inexpressibly astonished. If this be the opinion of the majority, I must submit ; but to me, sir, it appears perilous and destructive; I 2 cannot help thinking so : perhaps it may be the result of my age ; these may be feelings natural to a man of my years, when the American spirit has left him, and his mental powers, like the members of the body, are decayed. If, sir, amendments are left to the twentieth, or to the tenth part of the people of America, your liberty is gone for ever. We have heard that there is a great deal of bribery practised in the House of Commons in England ; and that many of the members raise themselves to preferments, by selling the rights of the people. But, sir, the tenth part of that body cannot continue oppres-sions on the rest of the people. English liberty is, in this case, on a firmer foundation than American liberty. It will be easily contrived to procure the opposition of one-tenth of the people to any alteration, however judicious. The honorable gentleman who presides, told us, that to prevent abuses in our government, we will assemble in convention, recall our dele-gated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed in them. Oh, sir, we should have fine times indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people. Your arms, wherewith you could de-fend yourselves, are gone; and you have no longer an aristocratical, no longer a democrat-ical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in any nation, brought about by the punish-ment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all ? You read of a riot act in a country which is called one of the freest in the world, where a few neighbors cannot as-semble without the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America. A standing army we shall have also, to execute the execra-ble commands of tyranny : and how are you to punish them ? Will you order them to be pun-ished? Who shall obey these orders? WiU your mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment? In what situation are we to be ? The clause before you gives a power of direct taxation, unbounded and unlimited; exclusive power of legislation in all cases whatsoever, for ten miles square, and over all places purchased for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, &c. What resistance could be made ? The attempt would be madness. You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies: those garrisons will naturally be the strongest places in the country. Your militia is given up to Congress also, in another part of this plan : they will therefore act as they think proper : all power will be in their own possession: you cannot force them to receive their punishment. Of what service would militia be to you, when most probably you will not have a single musket in the state ? For, as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may, or may not, furnish them. Let us here call your attention to that part which gives the Congress power " To provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the militia, and for governing such parts of them aa 18 PATRICK HENRY. may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to dis-cipline or arm our militia, they will be useless : the states can do neither, this power being ex-clusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed, is ridiculous: so that this pretended little remnant of power, left to the States, may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nuga-tory. Our situation wUl be deplorable indeed : nor can we ever expect to get this government amended ; since I have already shown, that a vei-y small minority may prevent it, and that small minority interested in the continuance of the oppression. Will the oppressor let go the oppressed ? Was there ever an instance ? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single exam-ple, where rulers, overcharged with power, willingly let go the oppressed, though solicited and requested most earnestly ? The application foi* amendments will therefore be fruitless. Sometimes the oppressed have got loose by one of those bloody struggles that desolate a country. But a willing relinquishment of power is one of those things which human nature never was, nor ever will be, capable of. The honorable gentleman's observations, re-specting the people's right of being the agents In the formation of this government, are not accurate, in "iiy humble conception. The dis-tinction between a national government and a confederacy, is not sufficiently discerned. Had the delegates, who were sent to Philadelphia, a power to propose a consolidated government instead of a confederacy ? Were they not de-puted by States, and not by the people ? The assent of the people, in their collective capacity, is not necessary to the formation of a federal government. The people have no right to enter into leagues, alliances, or confederations : they are not the proper agents for this purpose: States and sovereign powers are the only proper agents for this kind of government. Show me an instance where the people have exercised this business : has it not always gone through the legislatures? I refer you to the treaties with France, Holland, and other nations : how were they made? Were they not made by the States ? Are the people, therefore, in their ag-gregate capacity, the proper persons to form a confederacy ? This, therefore, ought to depend on the consent of the legislatures ; the people have never sent delegates to make any proposi-tion of changing the government. Yet I must say, at the same time, that it was made on grounds the most pure, and perhaps I might have been brought to consent to it, so far as to the change of government; but there is one thing in it, which I never would acquiesce in. I mean, the changing it into a consolidated gov-ernment, which is so abhorrent to my mind. The honorable gentleman then went on to the figure we make with foreign nations ; the contemptible one we make in France and Hol-land, which, according to the substance of my notes, he attributes to the present feeble gov-ernment. An opinion has gone forth, we find, that we are a contemptible people: the time i has been when we were thought otherwise. 1 Under this same despised government, we com- i manded the respect of all Europe : wherefore are we now reckoned otherwise ? The Ameri-can spirit has fled from hence : it has gone to regions, where it has never been expected : it has gone to the people of France, in search of a splendid government—a strong, energetic gov-ernment. Shall we imitate the example of thoso nations, who have gone from a simple to a splendid government ? Are those nations more worthy of our imitation ? What can make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss they have suffered in attaining such a government-— for the loss of their liberty ? If we admit this consolidated government, it will be because we like a great and splendid one. Some way or other we must be a great and mighty empire ; we must have an army, and a navy, and a num-ber of things. When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was dif-ferent : liberty, sir, was then the primary object. We are descended from a people whose govern-ment was founded on liberty : our glorious fore-fathers, of Great Britain, made liberty the fotm-dation of every thing. That country is become a great, mighty and splendid nation ; not be-cause their government is strong and energetic : but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation. We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors ; by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire. If you make the citizens of this country agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire of America, your government will not have sufficient energy to keep them together : such a government is incompatible with the ge-nius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances; your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous, ideal checks and contrivances? But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners ; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happi-ness, or secure liberty ? I trust, sir, our politi-cal hemisphere will ever direct its operations to the security of those objects. Consider our situation, sir; go to the poor man, ask him what he does ; he will inform you that he en-joys the fruits of his labor, under his own fig-tree, with his wife and children around him, in peace and security. Go to every other member of the society, you will find the same tranquil ease and content ; you will find no alarms or disturbances ! Why then tell us of dangers, to terrify us into the adoption of this new form of TEE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. 19 government ? And yet who knows the dangers that this new system may produce ? They are out of the sight of the common people : they cannot foresee latent consequences. I dread the operation of it on the middling and lower classes of people : it is for them I fear the adoption of this system. I fear I tire the patience of the committee, but I beg to be indulged with a few more observations. When I thus profess myself an advocate for the liberty of the people, I shall be told, I am a designing man, that I am to be a great man, that I am to be a demagogue ; and many similar illiberal insinuations will be thrown out ; but, sir, conscious rectitude outweighs these things with me. I see great jeopardy in this new gov-ernment : I see none from our present one. I hope some gentleman or other will bring forth, in full array, those dangers, if there be any, that we may see and touch them ; I have said that I thought this a consolidated government : I will now prove it. Will the great rights of the people be secured by this government? Suppose it should prove oppressive, how can it be altered? Our bill of rights declares, "That a majority of the community hath an indubita-ble, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." I have just proved, that one-tenth, or less, of the people of America—a most despicable minority, may prevent this reform, or alteration. Sup-pose the people of Virginia should wish to alter their government, can a majority of them do it ? No, because they are connected with other men; oi, in other words, consolidated with other States. When the people of Virginia, at a future day, shall wish to alter their govern-ment, though they should be unanimous in this desire, yet they may be prevented therefrom by a despicable minority at the extremity of the United States. The founders of your own con-stitution made your government changeable: but the power of changing it is gone from you ! Whither is it gone ? It is placed in the same hands that hold the rights of twelve other States ; and those, who hold those rights, have right and power to keep them. It is not the particular government of Virginia; one of the leading features of that government is, that a majority can alter it, when necessary for the public good. This government is not a Virgin-ian, but an American government. Is it not therefore a consolidated government? The sixth clause of your bill of rights tells you, " That elections of members to serve as repre-sentatives of the people in Assembly, ought to be free, and that all men, having sufficient evi-dence of permanent, common interest with, and attachment to the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property, for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representa-tives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not in like manner assented for the public good." But what does this constitution say ? The clause under consideration gives an unlimited and unbounded power of taxation. Suppose every delegate from Vu-ginia opposes a law laying a tax, what will it avail ? They are opposed by a majority ; eleven members can destroy their efforts: those feeble ten cannot prevent the passing the most oppressive tax-law. So that in direct opposition to the spirit and express language of your declaration of rights, you are taxed, not by your own consent, but by people who have no connection with you. The next clause of the bill of rights tells you, "That all power of suspending law, or the execution of laws, by any authority, with-out the consent of the representatives of the people, is injurious to their rights, and ought not to be exercised." This tells us that there can be no suspension of government, or laws, without our own consent ; yet this constitution can counteract and suspend any of our laws, that contravene its oppressive operation; for they have the power of direct taxation, which sus-pends our bill of rights ; and it is expressly pro-vided, that they can make all laws necessary for carrying their powers into execution ; and it is declared paramount to the laws and constitu-tions of the States. Consider how the only re-maining defence, we have left, is destroyed in this manner. Besides the expenses of main-taining the Senate and other House in as much splendor as they please, there is to be a great and mighty president, with very extensive pow-ers— the powers of a king. He is to be sup-ported in extravagant magnificence : so that the whole of our property may be taken by this American government, by laying what taxes they please, giving themselves what salaries they please, and suspending our laws at their pleasure. I might be thought too inquisitive, but I believe I should take up but very little of your time in enumerating the little power that is left to the government of Virginia ; for this power is reduced to little or nothing. Their garrisons, magazines, arsenals, and forts, which will be situated in the strongest places within the States—their ten miles square, with all the fine ornaments of human life, added to their powers, and taken from the States, will reduce the power of the latter to nothing. The voice of tradition, I trust, will inform posterity of our struggles forfreedom. If our descendants be wor-thy the name of Americans, they will preserve, and hand down to their latest posterity, the transactions of the present times ; and though, I confess, my exclamations are not worthy the hearing, they will see that I have done my ut-most to preserve their liberty : for I never will give up the power of direct taxation, but for a scourge. I am willing to give it conditionally; that is, after non-compliance with requisitions : I will do more, sir, and what I hope will con-vince the most sceptical man, that I am a lover of the American Union ; that in case Virginia shall not make punctual payment, the control of our custom-houses, and the whole regulation 20 PATEICK HENKY. of trade, shall be given to Congress ; and that Virginia shall depend on Congress even for passports, till Virginia shall have paid the last farthing, and furnished the last soldier. Nay, sir, there is another alternative to which I would consent : even that they should strike us out of the Union, and take away from us all federal privileges, till we comply with federal requisitions; but let it depend upon our own pleasure to pay our money in the most easy manner for our people. Were all the States, more terrible than the mother country, to join against us, I hope Virginia could defend her-self; but, sir, the dissolution of the Union is most abhorrent to my mind. The first thing I have at heart is American liberty ; the second thing is American union ; and I hope the people of Virginia will endeavor to preserve that union. The increasing population of the Southern States, is far greater than that of New England; consequently, in a short time, they will be far more numerous than the people of that coun-try. Consider this, and you will find this State more particularly interested to support Ameri-can liberty, and not bind our posterity by an improvident relinquishment of our rights. I would give the best security for a punctual compliance with requisitions; but I beseech gentlemen, at all hazards, not to grant this un-limited power of taxation. The honorable gentleman has told us that these powers given to Congress, are accompa-nied by a judiciary which will correct all. On examination, you will find this very judiciary oppressively constructed, your jury-trial de-stroyed, and the judges dependent on Congress. In this scheme of energetic government, the people will find two sets of tax-gatherers—the State and the federal sheriifs. This, it seems to me, will produce such dreadful oppression, as the people cannot possibly bear. The federal sheriff may commit what oppression, make what dis-tresses, he pleases, and ruin you with impunity : for how are you to tie his hands ? Have you any sufficient, decided means of preventing him from sucking your blood by speculations, com-missions, and fees? Thus thousands of your people will be most shamefully robbed. Our State sheriffs, those unfeeling bloodsuckers, have, under the watchful eye of our legislature, committed the most horrid and barbarous rav-ages on our people. It has required the most constant vigilance of the legislature to keep them from totally ruining the people. A re-peated succession of laws has been made, to suppress their iniquitous speculations and cruel extortions ; and as often has their nefarious in-genuity devised methods of evading the force of those laws: in the struggle, they have gene-rally triumphed over the legislature. It is a fact, that lands have sold for five shillings, which were worth one hundred pounds. If sheriffs, thus immediately under the eye of our State legislature and judiciary, have dared to commit these outrages, what would they not have done if their masters had been at Phila-delphia or New York ? If they perpetrate the most unwarrantable outrage, on your persons or property, you cannot get redress on this side ot Philadelphia or New York : and how can you get it there ? If your domestic avocations could permit you to go thither, there you must appeal to judges sworn to support this constitution in opposition to that of any State, and who may also be inclined to favor their own officers. When these harpies are aided by excisemen, who may search, at any time, your houses and most secret recesses, will the people bear it? If you think so, you differ from me. Where I thought there was a possibility of such mis-chiefs, I would grant power with a niggardly hand; and here there is a strong probability that these oppressions shall actually happen. I may be told, that it is safe to err on that side ; because such regulations may be made by Con-gress, as shall restrain these officers, and be-cause laws are made by our representatives, and judged by righteous judges : but, sir, as these regulations may be made, so they may not; and many reasons there are to induce a belief, that they wiU not : I shall therefore be an infi-del on that point tUl the day of my death. This constitution is said to have beautiful features; but when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me horribly fright-ful. Among other deformities, it has an awful squinting ; it squints towards monarchy : and does not this raise indignation in the breast of every true American? Your Pi-esident may easily become king. Your Senate is so imper-fectly constructed, that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by what may be a small minority : and a very small minority may continue for ever unchangeably this government, although hor-ridly defective. Where are your checks in tliis government? Your strongholds will be in the hands of your enemies. It is on a supposition that your American governors shall be honest, that all the good qualities of this'' government are founded; but its defective and imperfect construction, puts it in their power to perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men. And, sir, would not all the world, from the eastern to the western hemisphere, blame our distracted folly in resting our rights upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad? Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty. I say that the loss of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute certainty, every such mad attempt. If your American chief be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy will it be for him to render himself absolute ! The < army is in his hands, and, if he be a man of address, it will be attached to him ; and it will , be the subject of long meditation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to accomplish his design. And, sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens ? I would rather infinitely, and I am sure most of this THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION". 21 convention are of the same opinion, have a king, lords and commons, than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them: but the president in the field, at the bead of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any American ever to get his neck from under the galling yoke. I cannot, with patience, think of this idea. If ever he violates the laws, one of two things will happen : he will come at the head of his army to carry every thing before him ; or, he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the American throne ? Will not the immense dif-ference between being master of every thing, and being ignominiously tried and punished, powerfully excite him to make this bold push ? But, sir, where is the existing force to punish him? Can he not, at the head of his army, beat down every opposition ? Away with your president, we shall have a king: the army will salute him monarch ; your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king, and fight against you : and what have you to oppose tliis force? What will then become of you and your rights^ Will not absolute despotism ensue ? [Here Mr. Henry strongly and pathetic-ally expatiated on the probability of the presi-dent's enslaving America, and the horrid con-sequences that must result.] What can be more defective than the clause concerning the elections? The control given to Congress, over the time, place and manner of holding elections, will totally destroy the end of suffrage. The elections may be held at one place, and the most inconvenient in the state ; or they may be at remote distances from those who have a right of suflrage : hence, nine out of ten must either not vote at all, or vote for strangers : for the most influential characters will be applied to, to know who are the most proper to be chosen. I repeat, that the control of Congress over the manner, &c. of electing, well warrants this idea. The natural conse-quence will be, that this democratic branch will possess none of the public confidence : the people will be prejudiced against representatives chosen in such an injudicious manner. The proceedings in the northern conclave will be hidden from the yeomanry of this country. We are told, that the yeas and nays shall be taken and entered on the journals : this, sir, will avail nothing: it may be locked up in their chests, and concealed for ever from the people ; for they are not to publish what parts they think require secrecy ; they may think, and will think, the whole requires it. Another beautiful feature of this constitu-tion, is the publication, from time to time, of the receipts and expenditures of the public money. This expression, from time to time, is very indefinite and indeterminate : it may ex-tend to a century. Grant that any of them are wicked, they may squander the public money so as to ruin you, and yet this expression will give you no redress. I say, they may ruin you ; for where, sir, is the responsibility ? The yeas and nays will show you nothing, unless they be fools as well as knaves; for, after having wickedly trampled on the rights of the people, they would act like fools indeed, were they to publish and divulge their iniquity, when they have it equally in their power to suppress and conceal it. Where is the respon-sibility— that leading principle in the British government? In that government, a punish-ment, certain and inevitable, is provided; but in this, there is no real, actual punishment for the grossest mal-administration. They may go without punishment, though they commit the most outrageous violation on our immunities. That paper may tell me they will be punished. I ask, by what law ? They must make the law, for there is no existing law to do it. What — will they make a law to punish themselves? This, sir, is my great objection to the constitu-tion, that there is no true responsibility, and that the preservation of our liberty depends on the single chance of men being virtuous enough to make laws to punish themselves. In the country from which we are descended, they have real, and not imaginary responsibility; for there, mal-administration has cost their heads to some of the most saucy geniuses that ever were. The senate, by making treaties, may destroy your liberty and laws, for want of responsibility. Two-thirds of those that shall happen to be present, can, with the president, make treaties, that shall be the supreme law of the land : they may make the most ruinous treaties, and yet there is no punishment for them. Whoever shows me a punishment pro-vided for them, will oblige me. So, sir, not-withstanding there are eight pillars, they want another. Where will they make another? I trust, sir, the exclusion of the evils wherewith this system is replete, in its present form, will be made a condition precedent to its adoption, by this or any other state. The transition from a general, unqualified admission to oflices, to a consolidation of government, seems easy ; for, though the American States are dissimilar in tlieir structure, this will assimilate them : this, sir, is itself a strong consolidating feature, and is not one of the least dangerous in that system. Nine States are sufficient to establish this gov-ernment over those nine. Imagine that nine have come into it. Virginia has certain scru-ples. Suppose she will consequently refuse to join with those States : may not they still con-tinue in friendship and union with her? If she sends her annual requisitions in dollars, do you think their stomiifhs will be so squeamish as to refuse her dollars? Will they not accept her regiments ? They would intimidate you into an inconsiderate adoption, and frighten you with ideal evils, and that the Union shall be PATEICK HENEY. dissolved. 'Tis a bugbear, sir : the fact is, sir, that the eight adopting States can hardly stand on their own legs. Public fame teUs us, that the adopting States have already heart-burnings and animosity, and repent their precipitate hurry : this, sir, may occasion exceeding great mischief. When I reflect on these, and many other circumstances, I must think those States will be found to be in confederacy with us. If we pay our quota of money annually, and fur-nish our ratable number of men, when neces-sary, I can see no danger from a rejection. The history of Switzerland clearly proves, that we might be in amicable alliance with those States, without adopting this constitution. Switzerland is a confederacy, consisting of dis-similar governments. Tliis is an example, which proves that governments, of dissimilar struc-tures, may be confederated. That confederate republic has stood upwards of four hundred years ; and, although several of the individual republics are democratic, and the rest aristo-cratic, no evil has resulted from this dissimilar-ity, for they have braved all the power of France and Germany, during that long period. The Swiss spirit, sir, has kept them together; they have encountered and overcome immense difficulties, with patience and fortitude. In the vicinity of powerful and ambitious monarchs, they have retained their independence, repub-lican simplicity and valor. [Here Mr. Henry drew a comparison between the people of that country and those of France, and made a quo-tation from Addison, illustrating the subject.] Look at the peasants of that country, and of France, and mark the difference. You will find the condition of the former far more desir-able and comfortable. No matter whether a people be great, splendid and powerful, if they enjoy freedom. The Turkish Grand Seignior, along-side of our president, would put us to disgrace: but we should be abundantly con-soled for this disgrace, should our citizen be put in contrast with the Turkish slave. The most valuable end of government, is the liberty of the inhabitants. No possible advan-tages can compensate for the loss of this privi-lege. Show me the reason why the American Union is to be dissolved. Who are those eight adopting States? Are they averse, to give us a little time to consider, before we conclude? Would such a disposition render a junction with them eligible ; or, is it the genius of that kind of government, to precipitate a people hastily into measures of the utrnost importance, and grant no indulgence ? If it be, sir, is it for us to accede to such a government ? We have a right to have time to consider—we shall there-fore insist upon it. Unless the government be amended, we can never accept it. The adopt-ing States will doubtless accept our money and our regiments; and what is to be the conse-quence, if we are disunited? I believe that it is yet doubtful, whether it is not proper to stand by awhile, and see the effect of its adop-tion in other States. In forming a government. the utmost care should be taken, to prevent ita becoming oppressive ; and this government is of such an intricate and complicated nature, that no man on this earth can know its real operation. The other States have no reason to think, from the antecedent conduct of Virginia, that she has any intention of seceding from the Union, or of being less active to support the general welfare. Would they not, therefore, acquiesce in our taking time to deliberate—de-liberate whether the measure be not perDous, not only for us, but the adopting States. Per-mit me, sir, to say, that a great majority of the people, even in the adopting States, are averse to this government; I believe I would be right to say, that they have been egregiously misled. Pennsylvania has, perhaps, been tacked into it. If the other States, who have adopted it, have not been tricked, still they were too much hur-ried into its adoption. There were very re-spectable minorities in several of them ; and, if reports be true, a clear majority of the people are averse to it. If we also accede, and it should prove grievous, the peace and prosperity of our country, which we all love, will be de-stroyed. This government has not the affection of the people, at present. Should it be oppres-sive, their affection will be totally estranged from it—and, sir, you know, that a government without their affections can neither be durable nor happy. I speak as one poor individual—bu |
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