men of the Revolution, are most called to repudiate and to condemn the doctrines of this administration. I call upon you to apply to this administration all that body of political truth which you have learned from Henry, from Jefferson, from Madison, from Wythe, and that whole constellation of Revolutionary worthies, of whom you are justly proud, and under this light to examine and to say whether this exclusively Democratic administration are the favorers of civil liberty and of State rights, or the reverse. In furtherance of this design, I call your attention to the conduct of the President, of the executive departments, and of the Senate of the United States, in regard to the right and practice of the States to contract debts for their own purposes. Has it occurred to you what a deadly blow they have struck at the just authority and rights of the States? Let us follow this matter out a little. In the palmy times of the treasury, when it was not only full, but overflowing with the public money, the States, to a very considerable extent, engaged in works of internal improvement, and, in consequence of doing so, had occasion to borrow money. We all know that money can be had on much cheaper terms on the other continent than on this; hence the bonds of the States went abroad, and absorbed capital in Europe; and so long as their credit was unassailed and remained sound, this was accomplished, for the most part, at very reasonable rates. During this process, and while a number of the States had thus their State securities in the foreign market, the President of the United States, in his opening message to Congress at the commencement of the last session, comes out with a series of the most discouraging and most disparaging remarks on the credit of all the States. He tells Congress that the States will repent what they have done, and that they will find it difficult to pay the debts they have contracted; and this official language of the chief magistrate to the legisla ture goes out into the very market where these State bonds are held for sale. Then comes his Secretary, Mr. Woodbury, with a report in the same strain, giving it as his opinion, that the States have gone too far in this assumption of liabilities. But the thing does not stop here. Mr. Benton brings forward a resolution in the Senate declaring that the general government ought not to assume these debts of the States; that resolution is sent to a committee, and that committee make a report upon the

subject as long as yonder bridge, (though, I believe, by no means as often gone over,) the whole object and tendency of which are to disparage the credit of the States; and then Mr. Grundy makes a speech upon it to the same effect. What had Mr. Benton or Mr. Grundy to do with the matter? Were they called on to guarantee the debts of Virginia or of Maryland? Yet the effect very naturally and inevitably was, to depress the value of State securities in the foreign market. I was in Europe last summer. Massachusetts had her bonds in that market; and what did I see? The most miserable, pitiful, execrable lucubrations taken from the administration press in New York, endeavoring to prove that the States had not sovereignty enough to contract debts. These wretched productions declared that the bonds issued by the States of this Union were all void; that they were no better than waste paper; and exhorted European capitalists not to touch one of them. These articles, coming, as they did, from this side the water, were all seized on with avidity, and put into circulation in the leading journals of Europe. At the same time, the administration press in this country, unrebuked by the government, put forth arguments going to show that Virginia has no authority to contract a debt in the name and on the credit of the Commonwealth; that Massachusetts is so completely shorn of every particle of sovereignty whatever, that she can issue no public security of any kind on which to borrow money! And this is the doctrine of State rights! Well, Gentlemen, I was called on to meet this question, and I told those who put to me the inquiry, that the States of the American Union were, in this respect, just as sovereign as any of their states in Europe. I held a correspondence on the subject, which was published at length; and for that, yes, for defending State rights before the face of all Europe, I have been denounced as one who wants the general government to assume the debts of the States, as one who has conspired to buy up British Whigs (as they call us) with foreign gold! All this, however, has not ruffled my temper. I have seen it all with composure.

But I confess there is one thing which has disturbed the serenity of my mind. It is what appears to be a studied attempt, on the part of this whole administration, including its head, to fix a spot upon the good name of the early founders of our Constitution. Read the letter of the President to some of his

friends in Kentucky, to what he calls "the entire Democracy of Kentucky." (I should like much to know what constitutes the Democracy of a State.) These good friends of the President write to him that the entire Democracy of the State is with him, and he writes back how happy he is to hear that such is the fact. The State comes to the vote, and two thirds of the people of the State are found to be against him; yet still he clasps to his breast, with exultation, the "entire Democracy of Kentucky!" And so it will be a month hence. General Harrison will have been elected by a simultaneous rush of the free voters of the whole Union; yet Mr. Van Buren will still insist that he has in his favor "the entire Democracy" of the country. Be this as it may, he does, in that letter, ascribe to President Washington, in 1791, and to Mr. Madison, in 1816, corrupt motives for their public conduct. I may forgive this, but I shall not forget it. I ask you to read that letter, and one other written on a similar occasion; and then, if it comes in your way, I ask you to peruse an address put forth by the administration members of the New York Legislature. What do you think they say? You, countrymen of Jefferson and of Madison, of Henry, of Wythe, of the Lees, and a host of kindred spirits of the same order,—you, who inherit the soil and the principles of those men who shed their blood for our national independence, what do you think they say of your fathers and of my fathers? Why, that, in all their efforts and sacrifices in that great struggle, they meant, not independence, not civil liberty, not the establishment of a republican government, but merely to transfer the throne from England to America, and to be themselves peers and nobles around it! Does it not disturb the blood of Virginians to hear language like this? I do say that this attempt to scorch the fair, unsullied reputation of our ancestors But no, no, they cannot scorch it; it will go through a hotter furnace than any their detraction can kindle, and even the smell of fire shall not. be upon their garments. Yet it does raise one's indignation to see men, certainly not the greatest of all benefactors of their country, thus attempt to blight the fame of men both then and ever since universally admitted to have been among her greatest and her best of friends.

While speaking of the attacks of this administration on State rights, I should not do my duty if I omitted to notice the outrage recently perpetrated on the most sacred rights of the State

and people of New Jersey. By the Constitution of the United States, New Jersey, like the other States, is entitled to have a certain quota of representatives in Congress; and she chooses them by general ticket or in districts, as she thinks fit. The right to have a specific number of representatives is a State right under the Constitution. Under the constitutional guaranty of this right, New Jersey sends up to the House of Representatives her proper number of men. Now, I say that, by universal principles, although Congress be the judge, in the last resort, of the election return and qualification of her own members, those who bring in their hand the prescribed evidence of their election, by the people of any State, are entitled to take their seats upon the floor of that House, and to hold them until disturbed by proof preferred on petition. That this is so must be apparent from the fact, that those members who voted them out of their seats possessed no better or other means of proving their own right to sit and to vote on that question, than that held by any one of those whom they excluded. Were there other States situated precisely in this respect as New Jersey, would it not be as fair for the New Jersey members to vote these representatives out of the Representative Hall as it was for them to vote hers out? I think it is Virginia law, it is at least plantation law, that is to say, the law of common sense, and that is very good law, that, until the house is organized, he who has the evidence of his return as a representative elected by the people of his district, is entitled to take his seat. But the representatives of New Jersey, with this evidence in their hand, were voted out of their seats; their competitors, while the evidence was still under examination, were voted in, and immediately gave their complacent votes for the sub-treasury bill.

Gentlemen, I cannot forget where I am. I cannot forget how often you have heard these subjects treated with far greater ability than I can bring to the discussion. I will not further dwell upon these topics. The time has come when the public mind is nearly made up, and is very shortly about to settle these questions, together with the prosperity of the country for many years to come. I am only desirous of keeping myself to the line of remark with which I commenced. I say, then, that the enemy has been driven to his last citadel. He takes to himself a popular name, while beneath its cover he fires all manner of abuse upon his adversaries. That seems to be his only remain

ing mode of warfare. If you ask him what are his pretensions to the honors and confidence of the country, his answer is, "I am a Democrat." But are you not in love with Mr. Poinsett's bill? The answer still is, "I am a Democrat, and support all the measures of this Democratic administration." But do you approve of the turning out of the members from New Jersey? "O, yes, because the words are written on our banner (words actually placed on one of the administration flags in a procession in the interior of New York), The Democracy scorns the broad seal of New Jersey."

My friends, I only desire that the professions and principles of this administration may be examined. We are coming to those times when men can no longer be deceived by mere professions. Virginia has once been deceived by them; but that day is past; the times are coming, they are, I trust, just at hand, when that distinguished son of Virginia, that eminent and patriotic citizen who has been put in nomination for the chief executive office under this government, will be elected by the unbought, unconstrained suffrages of his countrymen. To that event I look forward with as much certainty as to the duration of his life.

My acquaintance with the feelings and sentiments of the North has been extensive; and I believe that, from Pennsylvania east, New Jersey, New York, and the whole of New England, with the solitary exception, probably, of New Hampshire,-I say, I have not a doubt that the whole of this part of the country is in favor of the clection of William Henry Harrison to the Presidency. Of my native State of New Hampshire I shall always speak with respect. I believe that the very foundations of her granite hills begin to shake; indeed, my only fear for her is, that she will come into the great family of her sister States only when her aid is no longer needed, and therefore too late for her own reputation.

Fellow-citizens, we are on a great march to the triumphant victory of the principles of liberty over executive power. If we do not accomplish it now, the future, I own, appears to me full of darkness and of doubt. If the American people shall sanction the course and the principles of this administration, I, for one, though I have been thought hitherto of rather a sanguine temperament, shall begin not a little to despair of the republic. But I will not despair of it. The public mind is aroused; men