and passion. It does not trust the amiable weaknesses of human nature, and therefore it will not permit power to overstep its prescribed limits, though benevolence, good intent, and patriotic purpose, come along with it. Neither does it satisfy itself with flashy and temporary resistance to illegal authority. Far otherwise. It seeks for duration and permanence. It looks before and after, and building on the experience of ages which are past, it labors diligently for the benefit of ages to come; this is the nature of constitutional liberty; and this is our liberty, if we will rightly understand and preserve it. Every free government is necessarily complicated, because all such governments establish restraints, as well on the power of government itself as on that of individuals. If we will abolish the distinction of branches, and have but one branch; if we will abolish jury trials, and leave all to the judge; if we will then ordain that the legislator shall himself be that judge; and if we will place the executive power in the same hands—we may readily simplify government. We may easily bring it to the simplest of all possible forms, a pure despotism. But a separation of departments, so far as practicable, and the preservation of clear lines of division between them, is the fundamental idea in the creation of all our constitutions; and doubtless the continuance of regulated liberty depends on maintaining these boundaries.

EXECUTIVE POWER.

And now, sir, who is he, so ignorant of the history of liberty, at home and abroad; who is he, yet dwelling, in his contemplations, among the principles and dogmas of the middle ages; who is he, from whose bosom all origi

nal infusion of American spirit has become so entirely evaporated and exhaled, as that he shall put into the mouth of the President of the United States the doctrine that the defence of liberty naturally results to executive power, and is its peculiar duty? Who is he, that, generous and confiding towards power where it is most dangerous, and jealous only of those who can restrain it; who is he, that, reversing the order of the State, and up-heaving the base, would poise the political pyramid of the political system upon its apex; who is he, that, overlooking with contempt the guardianship of the representatives of the people, and with equal contempt, the higher guardianship of the people themselves; who is he, that declares to us, through the President's lips, that the security for freedom rests in executive authority? Who is he that belies the blood and libels the fame of his own ancestors, by declaring that they, with solemnity of form, and force of manner, have invoked the executive power to come to the protection of liberty? Who is he that thus charges them with the insanity, or recklessness, of putting the lamb beneath the lion's paw? No, sir. Our security is in our watchfulness of executive power. It was the constitution of this department, which was infinitely the most difficult part in the great work of creating our present Government. To give to the executive department such power as should make it useful, and yet not such as should render it dangerous; to make it efficient, independent and strong, and yet to prevent it from sweeping away every thing by its union of military and civil authority, by the influence of patronage, and office, and favor; this, indeed, was difficult. They who had the work to do, saw the difficulty, and we see it; and if we would main

tain our system, we shall act wisely to that end, by preserving every restraint and every guard which the Constitution has provided. And when we, and those who come after us, have done all that we can do, and all that they can do, it will be well for us and for them, if some popular Executive, by the power of patronage and party, and the power, too, of that very popularity, shall not hereafter prove an over-match for all other branches of the Government.

DUTY OF THE SENATE.

Mr. President, I have spoken freely of this protest, and of the doctrines which it advances; but I have said nothing which I do not believe. On these high questions of Constitutional law, respect for my own character, as well as a solemn and profound sense of duty, restrains me from giving utterance to a single sentiment which does not flow from entire conviction. I feel that I am not wrong. I feel that an inborn and inbred love of Constitutional liberty, and some study of our political institutions, have not, on this occasion, misled me. But 1 have desired to say nothing that should give pain to the Chief Magistrate personally. I have not sought to fix arrows in his breast; but I believe him mistaken, altogether mistaken, in the sentiments which he has expressed; and I must concur with others in placing on the records of the Senate my disapprobation of those sentiments. On a vote, which is to remain so long as any proceeding of the Senate shall last, and on a question which can never cease to be important while the Constitution of the country endures, I have desired to make public my reasons. They will now be known,

and I submit them to the judgment of the present and of after-times. Sir, the occasion is full of interest. It cannot pass off without leaving strong impressions on the character of public men. A collision has taken place, which I could have most anxiously wished to avoid; it was not to be shunned. We have not sought this controversy; it has met us, and been forced upon us. In my judgment the law has been disregarded, and the Constitution transgressed; the fortress of liberty has been assaulted, and circumstances have placed the Senate in the breach; and, although we may perish in it, I know we shall not fly from it. But I am fearless of consequences. We shall hold on, sir, and hold out, till the People themselves come to its defence. We shall raise the alarm, and maintain the post, till they, whose right it is, shall decide whether the Senate be a faction, wantonly resisting lawful power, or whether it be oppos. ing, with firmness and patriotism, violations of liberty and inroads upon the Constitution.

CITY OF NEW-YORK.

Gentlemen, as connected with the Constitution, you have also local recollections which must bind it still closer to your attachment and affection. It commenced its being, and its blessings, here. It was in this City, in the midst of friends, anxious, hopeful, and devoted, that the new Government started in its course. To us, gen

tlemen, who are younger, it has come down by tradition; but some around me are old enough to have witnessed, and did witness, the interesting scene of the first inauguration. They remember what voices of gratified ptriotism, what shouts of enthusiastic hope, what acclama

tions, rent the air-how many eyes were suffused with tears of joy-how cordially each man pressed the hand of him who was next to him, when, standing in the open air, in the centre of the City, in the view of assembled thousands, the first President was heard solemnly to pro. nounce the words of his official oath, repeating them from the lips of Chancellor LIVINGSTON. You then thought, gentlemen, that the great work of the revolu tion was accomplished. You then felt that you had a Government-that the United States were then, indeed, united. Every benignant star seemed to shed its selectest influence on that auspicious hour. Here were heroes of the Revolution; here were sages of the Convention ; here were minds, disciplined and schooled in all the various fortunes of the country, acting now in several relations, but all co-operating to the same great end, the successful administration of the new and untried Constitution. And he-how shall I speak of him?—he was at the head, who was already first in war,-who was already first in the hearts of his countrymen,-and who was now shown also, by the unanimous suffrage of the country, to be first in peace.

Gentlemen, how gloriously have the hopes, then indulged, been fulfilled! Whose expectation was then so sanguine-I may almost ask, whose imagination then so extravagant-as to run forward and contemplate as probable, the one half of what has been accomplished in forty years? Who among you can go back to 1789, and see what this City, and this country too, then were-and then, beholding what they now are, can be ready to con. sent that the Constitution of the United States shall be weakened, nullified, or dishonored?