people are unhappily divided. In considering the question whether the counsels of the one or the other of these parties are wisest, and best calculated to advance the interests, the honor, and the prosperity of the nation, which every citizen ought to do, we should discard all passion and predjudice, and exercise, as far as possible, a perfect impartiality. And we should not confine our attention merely to the particular measures which those parties respectively espouse or oppose, but extend it to their general course and conduct, and to the spirit and purposes by which they are animated. We should anxiously enquire, whither shall we be led by following in the lead of one or the other of those parties-shall we be carried to the achievement of the glorious destiny, which patriots here, and the liberal portion of mankind every where, have fondly hoped awaits us? or shall we ingloriously terminate our career, by adding another melancholy example of the instability of human affairs, and the folly with which self-government is administered?

I do not arrogate to myself more impartiality, or greater freedom from party bias, than belong to other men; but, unless I deceive myself, I think I have reached a time of life, and am now in a position of retirement, from which I can look back with calmness, and speak, I hope with candor and justice. I do not intend to attempt a general contrast between the two parties as to their course, doctrines and spirit. That would be too extensive and laborious an undertaking for this occasion; but I purpose to specify a few recent instances, in which I think our political opponents have exhibited a spirit and bearing, disorganizing and dangerous to the permanency and stability of our institutions, and I invoke the serious and sober attention to them, of all who are here assembled.

The first I would notice is the manner in which Territories have been lately admitted, as States, into the Union. The early and regular practice of the Government was for Congress to pass previously a law authorising a Convention, regulating the appointment of members to it, specifying the qualification of voters, &c. In that way most of the States were received. Of late, without any previous sanction or authority from Congress, several territories have proceeded of themselves to call conventions, form Constitutions, and demand admission into the Union; and they were admitted. I do not deny that their population and condition entitled them to admission; but I

insist that it should have been done in the regular and established mode. In the case of Michigan, aliens were allowed to vote, as aliens have been allowed to become pre-emptioners in the public lands. And a majority in Congress sanctioned the proceeding. When foreigners are naturalized and incorporated, as citizens, in our community, they are entitled to all the privileges, within the limits. of the Constitution, which belong to a native born citizen; and, if necessary, they should be protected at home and abroad-the thunder of our artillery should roar as loud and as effectually in their defence, as if their birth were upon American soil. But I cannot but think it wrong and hazardous, to allow aliens, who have just landed upon our shores, who have not yet renounced their allegiance to Foreign Potentates, nor sworn fidelity to our constitution, with all the influences of monarchy and anarchy about them, to participate in our elections, and affect our legislation.

2. The New Jersey election, in which the great seal of the State, and the decision of the local authorities were put aside by the House of Representatives, and a majority thus secured to the democratic party.

3. Nullification, which is nothing more nor less than an assumption by one State to abrogate within its limits, a law passed by the twenty-six States in Congress assembled.

4. A late revolutionary attempt in Maryland to subvert the existing government, and set up a new one, without any authority of law.

5. The refusal of a minority in the Legislature of Tennessee, to cooperate with the majority (their Constitution requiring the presence of two-thirds of the members) to execute a positive injunction of the Constitution of the United States to appoint two United States Senators. In principle, that refusal was equivalent to announcing the willingness of that minority to dissolve the Union. For if thirteen or fourteen of the twenty-six States were to refuse altogether to elect Senators, a dissolution of the Union would be the consequence. That minority, for weeks together, and time after time, deliberately refused to enter upon the election. And, if the Union is not in fact dissolved, it is not because the principle involved would not lead to a dissolution, but because twelve or thirteen other States have not like them

selves refused to perform a high constitutional duty. And why did they refuse? Simply because they apprehended the election to the Senate of political oponents. The seats of the two Tennessee Senators, in the United States Senate, are now vacant, and Tennessee has no voice in that branch of Congress, in the general legislation. One of the highest compliments which I ever received, was to have been appointed, at a popular meeting in Tennessee, one of her Senators, in conjunctionwith a distinguished Senator from South Carolina, with all the authority that such an appointment could bestow. I repeat here an expression of my acknowledgements for the honor, which I most ambitiously resigned, when I gave up my Dictatorship, and my seat as a Kentucky Senator.

6. Then there is Repudiation, that foul stain upon the American character, cast chiefly by the Democrats of Mississippi, and which it will require years to efface from our bright escutcheon.

7. The support given to Executive usurpations, and the expunging the records of the United States.

8. The recent refusal of State Legislation to pass laws to carry into effect the act of distribution. An act of Congress passed according to all the forms of the Constitution, after ample discussion and deliberate consideration, and after the lapse of ten years from the period it was first proposed. It is the duty of all to submit to the laws, regularly passed. They may attempt to get them repealed; they have a right to test their validity before the Judiciary; but while the laws remain in force unrepealed, and without any decision against their constitutional validity, submission to them is not merely a constitutional and legal but a moral duty. In this case, it is true, that those who refuse to abide by them, only bite their own noses. But it is the principle of the refusal to which I call your attention. If a minority may refuse compliance with one law, what is to prevent minorities from disregarding all law? Is this any thing but a modification of nullification? What right have the servants of the people (the Legislative bodies) to withhold from their masters, their assigned quotas of a great public fund ?

9. The last, though not least, instance of the manifestation of a apirit of disorganization, which I shall notice, is the recent convul

sion in Rhode Island. That little but gallant and patriotic State had a Charter derived from a British King, in operation between one and two hundred years. There had been engrafted upon it laws and usages, from time to time, and altogether a practical Constitution sprung up, which carried the State as one of the glorious thirteen, through the Revolution and brought her safely into the Union. Under it, her Greens and Perrys, and other distinguished men were born and rose to eminence. The Legislature had called a Convention to remedy whatever defects it had, and to adapt it to the progressive improvements of the age. In that work of Reform the Dorr party might have co-operated; but, not choosing so to co-operate, and in wanton defiance of all established authority, they undertook subsequently to call another Convention. The result was two Constitutions, not essentially differing on the principal point of controversy, the right of suffrage.

Upon submitting to the people that which was formed by the regular Convention, a small majority voted against it, produced by a union in casting votes between the Dorr party, and some of the friends of the old Charter, who were opposed to any change. The other Constitution, being also submitted to the People, an apparent majority voted for it, made up of every description of votes, legal and illegal, by proxy and otherwise, taken in the most irregular and unauthorized manner.

The Dorr party proceeded to put their Constitution in operation, by electing him as the Governor of the State, members to the mock Legislature and other Officers. But they did not stop here; they proceeded to collect, to drill, and to marshal a military force, and pointed their cannon against the Arsenal of the State.

The President was called upon to interpose the power of the Union to preserve the peace of the State, in conformity with an express provision of the Federal Constitution. And I have as much pleasure in expressing my opinion that he faithfully performed his duty, in responding to that call, as it gave me pain to be obliged to animadvert on other parts of his conduct.

The leading presses of the Democratic party at Washington, Albany, New York and Richmond, and elsewhere, came out in support

of the Dorr party, encouraging them in their work of Rebellion and Treason. And when matters had got to a crisis, and the two parties were prepared for a Civil War, and every hour it was expected to blaze out, a great Tammany meeting was held in the City of New York, headed by the leading men of the party, the Cambrelings, the Vanderpools, the Allens, &c., with a perfect knowledge that the military power of the Union was to be employed, if necessary, to suppress the insurrection, and, notwithstanding, they passed resolutions tending to awe the President, and to countenance and cheer the Treason.

Fortunately, numbers of the Dorr party abandoned their Chief; he fled, and Rhode Island, unaided by any actual force of the Federal authority, proved herself able alone to maintain law, order and government within her borders.

I do not attribute to my fellow citizens here assembled, from whom I differ in opinion, any disposition to countenance the Revolutionary proceedings in Rhode Island. I do not believe that they approve it, I do not believe that their party generally could approve it, nor some of the other examples of a spirit of disorganization which I have enumerated; but the misfortune is, in time of high party excitement, that the leaders commit themselves, and finally commit the body of their party, who perceive that unless they stand by and sustain their leaders, a division and perhaps destruction of the party would be the consequence. Of all the springs of human action, party ties are perhaps the most powerful. Interest has been supposed to be more so; but party ties are more influential, unless they are regarded as a modification of imaginary interest. Under their sway, we have seen not only individuals but whole communities abandon their long cherished interests and principles, and turn round and oppose them with violence.

Did not the Rebellion in Rhode Island find for its support a precedent established by the majority in Congress, in the irregular admission of Territories, as States, into the Union, to which I have heretofore alluded? Is there not reason to fear that the example which Congress had previously presented encouraged the Rhode Island rebellion?

It has been attempted to defend that Rebellion upon the doctrines of the American Declaration of Independence; but no countenance