perfect government, beautiful as he conceives it to be, though
often tried, has invariably iailed, and has alwuys ran, when-
ever tried, through the same uniform process of faction,
corruption, anarchy, and despotism He considers the repre-
sentative principle as the great modern improvement in
legislation, and of itself sufficient to secure liberty. I caunol
regard it in the light in which he does. Instead of modern,
it is of remote origin, and has existed in greater or les.s per-
fection, in every free state, from the remotest antiquity Nor
do I consider it as of itself sufficient to secure liberty, though
I regard it as one of the indispensable means — the means of
securing the people against the tyranny and oppression of
their rulers. To secure liberty, another means is still neces-
sary — the means of securing the difl'erent portions of society,
against the injustice and oppression of each othtr, which
can only be elTected by veto, interposition, or nullification, or
by whatever name the restraining or negative power of
Government may be called.
The Senator seems to be enamored with his conception of
a consolidated government, and avows himself to be prepared,
STATE VETO TOWER. 27
seekiujr no lead, to rush in its defence to tlie front rank,
"where the hlows lall heaviest and thickest. I admire his
{ralhuitry and courajre ; hut I will tell him that he will find
in the o|tj)osite ranks, niider the tiajr of liberty, sjiirits as jral-
lant as his own ; and that experience will teach him, that it
is infinitely easier to carry on a war of ietrislative exaction,
hy hills and enactments, than to extort hy sword and bayonet
irom the brave and the free.
We are told, in order to juslify the passaj2;e of this fatal
measure, tliat it was necessary to present the olive hranch
with one hand, and the sword with the other. We scorn the
alternative. You have no rijrht to present the sword ; the
Constitution never put the instrument in your hands to he
em|il()ved a<rainst a iState ; and as to the olive hrancli,
whether we receive it or not, will not dejiend on your
menace, hut on our own estitnation ot what is due 1o ourselves
and the rest of the comnninitv, in reference to the dillicnlt
subject on which we have taken issue.
XIII.— STATE VETO POWER.
DANIEL WKBSTER.
T CANNOT recognize any rijrht in a State to arrest atid repeal
llie le<rislation of Conjrress. T could not forjret the pa.sl, nor
sliut my eves to the fact that the present aiarmin<r extent and
tlireateninnf form of a resistance and defiance, have been
consequent u})on the tolerated practical imllificatiou of the
State oi' t^eoriria. The •.'entleman from S(.utli Carolina, lias
a.-sun'd us that such is tlie lact ; attempts have been vainly
rniide tei find a distinction between the two. In jninciide
tliey are identical. I reifret that the fjentleman from ( !eor<.>ia,
in his endeavor to render his defence of the one, consistent
with the condemnation of the other, has deemed it necessary
to assail the Supreme Court of the United States — to pro-
nounce tfie reasoninjr and arirunn'iit of one of its most impor-
tant decisions to be unwurlhy the lowest connty court in any
of the States I 1 can assure the frentleman tli;i1 the coiiiilry
re<rards it far otherwise, and that the mo.st vi^romus and
gifted minds (Imu il no'- <il thr most jinwcii'ul jHCHbicI ums ol
the wonderfnl intellccl of the revered chief of that auirnst
28 THE DOOK OF ELOQUENCE.
tribunal. Tf, in the inscrutable ways of Providence, our
institutions are destined to be subverted, and left in ruins by
the convulsions of revolution, that decision and other kindred
constitutional opinions from the same mind, will remain to
after generations, splendid and enduring monuments of intel-
lectual and moral greatness, and, like the broken columns and
classic remains of Athens and Palmyra, be the wonder and
admiration of successive ages. The time has arrived when
the progress of nullification must be arrested, or the hopes ot
permanent union surrendered. The gentleman assures us
that his theory would make this government a beautiful
system I Beautiful as would be the proud and polished
pillars which surround us, if resolved into their original rude
and paltry pebbles ; beautiful as the dashed mirror, A-om
vhose fragments are reflected twenty-four pigmy portraits,
instead of one gigantic and noble original I The triumph of
.hat doctrine dissolves the unioii. It must be so regarded by
foreign nations ; it is almost so even now. Already have the
exuliations of the oppres.sor, and the laments of the pliilan-
t':.ropist, been heard beyond the Atlantic They have looked
with fear and hope, with wonder and delight, upon the
brilliant and beautiful constellation in our western hemi-
sphere, moving in majestic harmony, irradiating the earth
with its mild and benignant beams. iShall these stars now
be severed and scattered, and rushing from their orbits
through the troubled air, singly and feebly sink into clouds
of murky blackness, leaving the world in rayless night ?
Shall the flag of our common country, the ensign of our
nation, which has waved in honor upon every sea — the
guardian of our common rights — the herald of our common
glory — be severed and torn into twenty-four fragments ; and
our ships hereafter display for their protection but a tattered
rag of one of its stripes ?
XIV.— VINDICATION OF THE SOUTH.
J. CLEMENS.
How stands the account of personal services? It was a
Southern man who pointed out the road from bondage to
independence ; who led you triumphantly through the perils
TIES THAT BIND THE WEST TO US. 29
of a seven years' war, and sternly refused the diadem with
whieli a grateful sol iiery would liave cri)wned hiui. It was
a Southern o-eneral and Southern soldiers who breasted tlie
British bayonets at New Orleans, and added one of its bright-
est chapti-rs to the histmy of the Republic. Southern blood
has watered every plain from the St. Lawrence to tliH
capilal of the Aztecs. The memortfble fields of Palo Alto,
and Resaca de la Palma Mere won by a Southern general
It was before the genius of a Southern leader, tliat the walls
and towers of Monterey crumbled into dust ; and two South-
ern regiments, struggling side by side in a glorious rivalry,
snatched from the camion's mouth the palm of victory. In
the narrow gorge of Angostura, Southern valor again stemmed
the tide of war, and rolled back the murderous charges of
the ic)e. On the sands of Vera Cruz, another great name
which the South has given to history and renown, added to
a fame ah-eady imperishable, and wrung from the reluctant
nations of the Old World, plaudits which they could not with-
hold. At Cerro Gordo, the story of Southern achievements
was re-written in blood ; and among the rocks and volcanoes
of Contreras, the glorious old Palmetto State vindicated her
right to the title of chivalrous, and silenced forever the
tongues of her detractors. Sir, I mean to indulge in no dis-
])aragement of the North. She has furnished gallant men
who have done their duty nobly upon the field. 1 would not,
if I could, tear a single laurel from her brow. But 1 claim
tliat tiie record gives to us at least an equality of tlie common
dangers, the common suflerings, and the common trium])hs,
and I demand an equal participation in the rights they have
established.
XV.— TIES THAT BIND THE WEST TO US.
EDWARD EVERETT.
The states and nations which are springing up in the val-
li-y of the Mi.ssouri, are Itouiid to us by the dearest ties of a
common lanjfnage, a commoii government, and .'i couiuion
descent. Bei()re New England can look with colthiess on their
ri.siiig myriads, she must forget that some of her own best
blood is beating in their veins ; that her hardy children, with
30 THE BOOK OF ELOQUENCE.
their axes on their shoulders, have been anrionp ihe pioneers
in the march of humanity; that young as she is, she has be-
come the mother oC populous states. What generous miutl
would sacrifice to a selfish preservation of local preponderance
the delight of beholdiug civilized nations rising up in the dts-
ei-I ; and the language, the manners, the principles in which
he has been reared, carried, with his household gods, to the
foot of the Rocky Mountains ? Who can forget, that this ex-
tension of our territorial limits is the extension of the empire
of all we hold dear ; of our laws, of our character, of the mem-
ory of our ancestors, of the great achievements in. our histo-
ry ? Whithersoever the sons of the thirteen States sliall wan-
der, to the southern or western climes, they will send back
their hearts to the rocky shores, the fertile fields, the infant
settlements of the Atlantic coast. These are placed beyond
the reach of vicissitude. They have already become matter
«f history, of poetry, of eloquence.
Divisions may spring up, ill blood may burn, parties be
formed, and interests may seem to clash ; but the great bonds
of the nation are linked to what is past. The deeds of
the great men, to whom this country owes its origin and
growth, are a patrimony, 1 know, of which its children will
never deprive themselves. As long as the Mississippi and
Missouri shall flow, those men, and those deeds, will be re-
membered on their banks. The sceptre of government may
go where it will ; but that of patriotic feeling can never de-
part from Judah. In all tliat mighty region which is drained
by the Missouri and its tributary streams, — the valley coex-
tensive, in this country, with the temperate zone, — will there
be, as long as the name of America shall last, a father that
will not take his children on his Knee, and recount to them
the events of the twenty-second of December, the nineteenth
of April, the seventeenth of June, and the fourth of July ?
This then is the theatre on which the intellect of America
is to appear, and such the motives to its exertion ; such the
mass to be influenced by its energies ; such the glory to crown
its success. If I err in this happy vision of my country's ior-
tiuies, I thank Heaven ii)r an error so animating. If this, be
false, may I never know the truth.
PATiaOTIC Ari'EAL. 31
XVL— PATRIOTIC APPEAL.
J. m'dowell.
Give us but a part of that devotion which frlowed in the
heart ot" the younjjer Pitt, and ol" our own elder Adams, whq,
in the midst of their agonies, forjrot not the countries they had
hved fur, but mingled with the spasms of their dying hour a
las' and imploring appeal to the Parent of all Mercies that he
would rememher, in eternal blessings, the land of their birth :
give us their devotion, give us that of the young enthusiast of
Paris, who listening to Mirabeau in one of his surpassing vin-
dications of human right, and seeing him fall from his stand,
dying, as a physician proclaimed, lor the want of blood, rushed
to the s|K)t, and as he bent over the expiring man, bared his
arm lor the lancet, and cried again, and ajiain, with impas-
sioned voice — " Here, take it — take it — oh I take it from mc,
let me die, so that Mirabeau and the liberties of my country
may not perish !" Give us something only of such a spirit as
this — something only of such a love of country, and we are
sale, Ibrever safe : the troubles which shadow over and op-
pr.'ss US now, will pass away as a summer cloud. No measure
ot unalienable wrong, no measure of unconquerable disagree-
ment, will be press«d upon us here. The fatal element of all
our discord will be taken from amongst us. Let gentlemen be
entreated to remove it as the one only and solitary obstacle to
our perfect peace. Let them be adjnred by the weal of this
and coming ages — by our own and our cliildren's good — by all
that we love or that we KK)k for in the progress and the glo-
ries of our land, to leave the entire subject of slavery, with
eveiy accountability it may impose, every remedy it may re-
quire, every accunuilalion of difficulty or pressure it may
reach ; to leave it all to the interest, to the wisdom, and to the
coMseieiu:e of those upon whom the providence oi God and tho
Constitution of their country have cast it. Leave it to them
•noir (i)i(l forrrer, and stop, whilst it is yet possible to stop, the
ihrious and bluid headway of that wild and mad philanthrt)py,
which is lighting up for the nation ilsell the fires of the stake,
and which is rusliing on, stride after stride, to an intestine
struggle that may bring us all under a harder, and wickeiler,
and more incurable slavery, than any it would extinguish.
32 THE BOOK OF ELOQUENCE.
XVII.— CALIFORNIA AND PLYMOUTH ROCK.
THOMAS H. BENTOX.
Let us vote upon the measures before us, beginning with
the admission of California. Let ns vote her in. Let us vote,
after lour months' talk. The people wlio have gone there
have done honor to the American name. tStarting from a
thousand points, and tneetmg as strangers far removed from
law and government, they have cond noted themselves with
the order, decorum and justice, which would have done honor
to the oldest established and best regulated community. They
have carried our institutions to the furthest verge of the
hmd — to the coast of the Pacific, and lit it up with the lights
of religion, liberty, and science — lights which will shine
across the broad ocean, and illuminate the dark recesses of
benighted Asia. They have completed the work of the Pil-
grim Fathers. Would to God that those who landed on the
Rock, and on the banks of the James river, more than two
hundred years ago, and who crossed the stormy Atlantic in
search of civil and religious liberty, and who did so uuich tor
both in their day and generation, could now see what has
been done in our day I could look down from their celestial
abodes, and see the spark which they struck Irom the flint
now blazing with a light which fixes the gaze of the world —
see the mustard seed which they planted, now towering to the
skies, and spreading its branches from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. With what rapture would they welcome the Pil-
grims of California into the family circle, while we, their de-
scendants, sit here in angry debate, repulsing our brethren,
calculating the value of the Union, and threatening to rend it
asunder if California is admitted.
XVIII.— THE HONOR OF WAR.
W. H. CH.\NN1NQ.
That the idea of glory should be associated strongly with
military exploits, ought not to be wondered at. From the
earliest ages, ambitious sovereigns and states have sought to
spread the military spirit, by loading it with rewards.
THE HONOR OF WAR. 33
Badges, ornaments, distinctions, the most flatterinfr and
intoxicating", have been the prizes of" war. The arislocracy
ot Europe, whicli couiuiencctl in barbarous ages, was luun>Jed
on nuiitary talent and success ; and the chief education of
tiie young noble, was, fur a long time, little more than a
trainmg lor battle, — hence the strong connection between
war and honor. All past ages have bequeathed us this pre-
jiulice, and the structure of society has given it a feailuj
force. Lotus consider it with some pai-ti> ularity.
The idea of honor is associated with war. But to whom
does the honor belong ? If to any, certainly not to the mass
of the peo])le, but to those who are particularly engaged in it.
The mass of a people, who stay at liome, and hire others to
fight — who sleep in their warm beds, and hire others to sleep
on the cold and damp earth, — who sit at their well-spread
board, and hire others to take tlieir chance of starving — who
nurse the slightest hurt on their own bodies, and hire others
to expose themselves to mortal wounds and to linger in com-
ibrtless hospitals ; certainly this mass reap little honor from
war ; the honor belongs to tliose immediately engaged in it
Let me ask, then, what is the chief business of war ? It is to
destroy human life ; to mangle the limbs ; to gash and iiew
tlie body ; to plunge the sword into the heart of a ieUow-
Creature ; to strew the earth with bleeding frames, and to
trample them under foot with horses' hoofs. It is to batter
down and burn cities ; to turn fruitful fields into deserts ; to
level the cottage of the peasant and the magnificent abode
of opulence ; to scourge nations with famine ; to umltiply
widows and orpiians. Are these honorable deeds ? VVhi-h
you called to name exploits worthy of demons, woulJ you noi
naturally select such as these? Grant that a necessity for
them may exist ; it is a dreadful necessity, such as a good
man must recoil from with instinctive horror ; and though it
may exempt them from guilt, it cannot turn them into glory.
We have thought that it was honorable to heal, to save, to
mitigate pain, to snatch the sick and sinking from the jaws
ot" death. We have placed among the i-evercd benefactors
of the human race, the discoverers of arts which alleviate
liuman sullljrings, which j)roloiig, comf()rt, adorn, and cheer
liuman life ; and if these arts be honorable, where is tlie
glory of multiplying and aggravatuig tortures and death ?
2*
34 THE BOOK OF ELOQUENCE.
XIX— DANGER OF INDIAN HOSTILITIES.
FISHER AMES.
If any should maintain that the peace with the Indians
would be stable without the posts, to them I will urjre
another reply. From arjrumeiits calculated to procure con-
viction, ! will appeal directly to the hearts of those who hear
ine, and ask, wliether it is not already planted there ? I
resort especially to the convictions ot" the Western gentlemen,
whether, supposing no posts and no treaty, the settlers will
remain in security ? Can they take it upon them to say, tliat
an Indian peace, under these circumstances, will prove flrmJ?
No, sir, it will not be peace, but a sword ; it will be no
better than a lure to draw victims within the reach of the
tomahawk.
On this theme my emotions are unutterable. If I could
find words for them, if my powers bore any proportion to my
zeal, I wouhl swell my voice to such a note of reinoii-strance,
it should reach every log house beyond the mountains. I
would say to the inhabitants, wake from your liilse security ;
your cruel dangers, your more cruel appreliensions are soon
to be renewed ; the wounds, yet unhealed, are to be torn
open again ; in the day-time your path through the woods
will be ambusiied ; the darkness of midnight will glitter with
tlie blaze ot" your dwellings. You area fathei — tlie blood of
your sons shall fatten j'our corn-field : you are a mother —
the war-whoop shall wake the sleep of the cradle.
On this subject you need not suspect any deception on
your feelings ; it is a spectacle of horror wiiich cannot be
overdrawn. If you have nature in your hearts, they will
speak a language, compared with which, all I have said, or
can say, will be jwor and frigid. Will any one deny that
we are Iwund, and I would hope to good purpose, by the
most solemn sanctions of duty for the vote we give ? Are
despots alone to be reproached for unfeeling indiH'erence to
the tears and blood of their .subjects ? Are republicans
irresponsible? Have the principles on which you ground the
reproach upon cabinets and kings, no practical influence, no
binding force? Are they merely themes of idle declamation,
introduced to decorate^the morality of a newspaper essay, or
to furnish pretty topics of harangue from the windows of that
Stale House ? I trust it is neither too presumptuous nor too
i^OMINAL WAR. 35
late to ask : Can you put the dearest interests of society at
risk without guilt, and without remorse ? There is no mis-
take in this case ; there can be none : experience has already
been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future vic-
tims have already reached us. The Western inhabitants are
not a silent or uncomplainin<r sacrifice. The voice of human-
ity issues from the shade of tlie wilderness ; it exclaims that,
while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other
jrrasps a tomahawk. It summons our imatrination to the
scenes that will open. It is no great ellbrt of the imagina-
tion to conceive that events so near are already begun. I
can i'ancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance, and
the shrieks of torture ; already they seem to sigh in the
AW'stern wind ; already they mingle with every echo from
the mountains.
XX.— NOMINAL WAR.
JOHN RANDOLPH.
But, sir, I shall be told, perliaps, that there is only a
'tuindiud war between Spain and those belligerents — that
there is nothing else — a war ol name ; and that Spain is
unable any longer to wag a finger, to use a familiar phrase,
or anything but her tongue in the contest. If that be the
condition of Spain, by what arguments can king-cralt and
priest-craft be prevailed on to remove this nominal claim,
which will, like some others, keep cold until the chapter of
accidents may realize it ? Did Philip the Second ever recog-
nize the independence of the iJutch, when that independence
was more firmly established than his own ? No, sir, Spain
is made of sterner stulf. Truce after truce was }ta1eh(!d up
witliout any such recognition — and they were the United
I'rociKicA, and so remained till France gave them the coifi)
de <irac(', by the true fraternal hug. What, sir, was the con-
tlition of the war between England and France a little while
ago - one not having a ship at sea, except a lew frigates,
which she employed in l)nrning our ships in a friendly way,
so as to indu(M^ us to join in making a diversion in aid of her
cru.sa<le against iVlo.scow — Irom which I hope we shall take
warning ; for that attempt was not only plausible, but
36 THE BOOK OF ELuQU&NCE.
promised suecess — was quite practicable, compared to the
crusade to which I have alluded— aud England had not a
man, at the time I speak of, after the battle of Jena, in arms
on her side, on the continent of Europe — not one man ; and
there they stood, a complete non-conductor interposed between
them, except the United States, who received the blows
of both !
But, though that war was for a long time little else but a
suspension of arms, from the inability of each to attack on.
the other's element — was it nominal— was it war like a'
peace, or even peace like a war, as was said of Amiens?
Oh, no- old England had nailed the colors to the mast; she
had determined to go down rather than give up the ship ; she
wisely saw no safety for. her in what might be called a peace ;
and it was a glorious determination ; and it is that spirit — it
is not thews, muscle — it is not brawn, it is that spirit which
gives life to every nation — that spirit which carries a man,
however feeble, through conflicts Avith giants, compared to
him in point of strength, honorably, triumphantly. Sir, I
consider the late conflict between England and France —
England against the congregated continent of Europe —to
say nothing of any other make-weights in the scale — confi-
dent against a world in arms — as far surpassing in sublimity
of example, the tenaciousness of purpose of Rome during the
second Punic war, as that surpassed any of our famous Indian
wars and expeditious. It is a lesson of the constancy of the
human mind, which ought never to be thrown away.
XXL— THE DIFFICULT STEP.
JOHN RANDOLPH.
Sir, I never could speak or quarrel by the book — by the
card, as Touchstone tells us, was the fashion hi his day. I
have no gift at this special pleading — at the retort courteous
and the countercheck quarrelsome, till things get to the
point, where nothing is left for it but to back out or fight.
We are asked, sir, by this new executive government of
ours not in the very words, but it is a great deal like it —
of the son of Climene — to give some token, some proof, that
they possess legitimate claims to the confidence of the people —
DEATH OF J. Q. ADAMS. 37
which they have modestly confessed they do not possess in
the same depree as thi'ir predecessors. I will answer them
in the words of the father of that son, " You ask definite
pledpres — I give definite pledges tremblingly." But, sir, the
pliaetoM is at the door, ambition burns to mount. Whether
the Mississippi, hke the Po, is to sutler a metamorphosis, not
in :ts poplars — Avhelher the blacks shall be turned into whites,
or tlie whites into blacks, the slaves into masters, or the mas-
ters into slaves, or the murdered and their murderers to
chaiiire color, like the mulberry-trees, belongs to men of
greater sagacity than I am, to foretell. I am content to act
the part of Cassandra, to lift up my voice, whether it be