moment before the American people. Entertaining this sentiment, and thoroughly and entirely convinced of its truth, I wish, as far as my humble power extends, to awaken the people to a more earnest attention to their public concerns. With the people, and the people alone, lies any remedy for the past, and any security for the future. No delegated power is equal to the exigency of the present crisis. No public servants, however able or faithful, have ability to check or to stop the fearful tendency of things. It is a case for sovereign interposition. The rescue, if it come at all, must come from that power which no other on earth can resist. I earnestly wish, therefore, unimportant as my own opinions may be, and entitled, as I know they are, to no considerable regard, yet, since they are honest and sincere, and since they respect nothing less than dangers which appear to me to threaten the Government and Constitution of the country, I fervently wish, that I could now make them known, not only to this meeting, and to this State, but to every man in the Union. I take the hazard of the reputation of an alarmist; I cheerfully submit to the imputation of over-excited apprehension; I discard all fear of the cry of false prophecy, and I declare, that, in my judgment, not only the great interests of the country, but the Constitution itself, is in imminent peril, and that nothing can save, either the one or the other, but that voice which has authority to say to the evils of misrule and misgovernment, Hitherto shall ye come, but no farther.

It is true, Sir, that it is the natural effect of a good Constitution to protect the people. But who shall protect the Constitution? Who shall guard the guardian? What arm but the mighty arm of the people itself, is able, in a popular government, to uphold public institutions? The Constitution itself is but the creature of the public will; and in every crisis which threatens it, it must owe its security to the same power to which it owes its origin.

The appeal, therefore, is to the people; not to party, nor to partisans; not to professed politicians; not to those who have an interest in office and place, greater than their stake in the country; but to the people, and the whole people; to those, who, in regard to political affairs, have no wish but for a good government, and who have power to accomplish their own wishes.

Mr. President: Are the principles and leading measures of the Administration hostile to the great interests of the country?

Are they dangerous to the Constitution, and to the Union of the States?

Is there any prospect of a beneficial change of principles and measures, without a change of men?

Is there reasonable ground to hope for such a change of men?

On these several questions, I desire to state my own convictions, fully, though as briefly as possible.

Ás government is intended to be a practical institution, if it be wisely formed, the first and most natural test of its administration is the effect produced by it. Let us look, then, to the actual state of our affairs. Is it such as should follow a good administration of a good Constitution?

Sir, we see one State openly threatening to arrest the execution of the revenue laws of the Union, by acts of her own. This proceeding is threatened, not by irresponsible persons, but by those who fill her chief places of power and trust.

In another State, free citizens of the country are imprisoned, and held in prison, in defiance of a judgment of the Supreme Court, pronounced for their deliverance. Immured in a dungeon, marked and patched as subjects of penitentiary punishment, these free citizens pass their days in counting the slow-revolving hours of their miserable captivity, and their nights in feverish and delusive dreams of their own homes and their own families; while the Constitution stands adjudged to be violated, a law of Congress is effectually repealed by the act of a State, and a judgment of deliverance, by the Supreme Court, is set at nought and contemned.

Treaties, importing the most solemn and sacred obligations, are denied to have binding force.

A feeling, that there is great insecurity for property, and the stability of the means of living, extensively prevails.

The whole subject of the tariff, acted on for the moment, is, at the same moment, declared not to be at rest, but liable to be again moved, and with greater effect, just so soon as power for that purpose shall be obtained.

The currency of the country, hitherto safe, sound, and universally satisfactory, is threatened with a violent change; and an embarrassment in pecuniary affairs, equally distressing and unnecessary, hangs over all the trading and active classes of society.

A long-used and long-approved legislative instrument for the collection of revenue, well secured against abuse, and always responsible to Congress and to the laws, is denied further existnce; and its place is proposed to be supplied by a new branch of the Executive Department, with a money power, controlled and conducted solely by Executive agency.

The power of the VETO is exercised, not as an extraordinary, but as an ordinary power; as a common mode of defeating acts of Congress not acceptable to the Executive. We hear, one day, that the President needs the advice of no cabinet; that a few secretaries, or clerks, are enough for him. The next, we are informed, that the Supreme Court is but an obstacle to the popular

will, and the whole Judicial Department but an encumbrance to Government. And while, on one side, the judicial power is thus derided and denounced, on the other arises the cry, "Cut down the Senate!" and over the whole, at the same time, prevails the loud avowal, shouted with all the lungs of conscious party strength and party triumph, that the spoils of the enemy belong to the victors. This condition of things, Sir, this general and obvious aspect of affairs, is the result of three years' administration, such as the country has experienced.

But, not resting on this general view of results, let me inquire what the principles and policy of the Administration are, on the leading interests of the country, subordinate to the Constitution itself. And, first, what are its principles, and what its policy, respecting the tariff? Is this great question settled, or unsettled? And is the present Administration for, or against, the tariff?

Sir, the question is wholly unsettled, and the principles of the Administration, according to its most recent avowal of those principles, are adverse to the protecting policy, decidedly hostile to the whole system, root and branch; and this on permanent and alleged Constitutional grounds.

In the first place, nothing has been done to settle the tariff question. The anti-tariff gentlemen who voted for the late law have, none of them, said they would adhere to it. On the contrary, they supported it, because, as far as it went, it was reduction, and that was what they wished; and if they obtained this degree of reduction now, it would be easier to obtain a greater degree hereafter; and they frankly declared that their intent and purpose was to insist on reduction, and to pursue reduction, unremittingly, till all duties on imports should be brought down to one general and equal per centage, and that regulated by the mere wants of the revenue; or that, if different rates of duty should remain on different articles, still, that the whole should be laid for revenue, and revenue only; and that they would, to the utmost of their power, push this course, till protection, by duties, as a special object of national policy, should be abandoned, altogether, in the national councils. It is a delusion, therefore, Sir, to imagine that the present tariff stands, safely, on conceded ground. It covers not an inch, that has not been fought for, and must not be again fought for. It stands, while its friends can protect it, and not an hour longer.

In the next place, in that compend of Executive opinions in the VETO Message, the whole principle of the protecting policy is plainly and pointedly denounced.

Having gone through its argument against the Bank charter, as it now exists, and as it has existed, either under the present or a former law, for near forty years, and having added to the welldoubted logic of that argument the still more doubtful aid of a

large array of opprobrious epithets, the message, in unveiled allusion to the protecting policy of the country, holds this language:

"Most of the difficulties our Government now encounters, and most of the dangers which impend over our Union, have sprung from an abandonment of the legitimate objects of government by our National Legislation, and the adoption of such principles as are imbodied in this act. Many of our rich men have not been content with equal protection and equal benefits, but have besought us to make them richer by act of Congress. By attempting to gratify their desires, we have, in the results of our legislation, arrayed section against section, interest against interest, and man against man, in a fearful commotion which threatens to shake the foundations of our Union. It is time to pause in our career, to review our principles, and, if possible, revive that devoted patriotism and spirit of compromise which distinguished the sages of the revolution, and the fathers of our Union. If we cannot at once, in justice to interests vested under improvident legislation, make our Government what it ought to be, we can at least take a stand against all new grants of monopolies and exclusive privileges, against any prostitution of our Government to the advancement of the few at the expense of the many, and in favor of compromise and gradual reform in our code of laws and system of political economy."

Here, then, we have the whole creed. Our National Legislature has abandoned the legitimate objects of government. It has adopted such principles as are imbodied in the Bank charter; and these principles are elsewhere called objectionable, odious, and unconstitutional. And all this has been done, because rich men have besought the Government to render them richer by acts of Congress. It is time to pause in our career. It is time to review these principles. And, if we cannot, at once, MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT WHAT IT OUGHT TO BE, we can, at least, take a stand against new grants of power and privilege.

The plain meaning of all this is, that our protecting laws are founded in an abandonment of the legitimate objects of government; that this is the great source of our difficulties; that it is time to stop in our career, to review the principles of these laws, and, as soon as we can, MAKE OUR GOVERNMENT WHAT IT OUGHT

TO BE.

No one can question, Mr. President, that these paragraphs, from the last official publication of the President, show, that, in his opinion, the tariff, as a system designed for protection, is not only impolitic, but unconstitutional also. They are quite incapa

ed rehearsal, in terms of special complaint. By this "monopoly," I suppose, is understood the restriction contained in the charter, that Congress shall not, during the twenty years, create another Bank. Now, Sir, let me ask, Who would think of creating a Bank, inviting stockholders into it, with large investments, imposing upon it heavy duties, as connected with the Government, receiving some millions of dollars as a bonus, or premium, and yet retaining the power of granting, the next day, another charter, which would destroy the whole value of the first?-If this be an unconstitutional restraint on Congress, the Constitution must be strangely at variance with the dictates both of good sense and sound morals. Did not the first Bank of the United States contain a similar restriction? And have not the States granted Bank charters, with a condition, that if the charter should be accepted, they would not grant others? States have certainly done so; and, in some instances, where no bonus, or premium, was paid at all; but from the mere desire to give effect to the charter, by inducing individuals to accept it and organize the institution. The President declares that this restriction is not necessary to the efficiency of the Bank; but that is the very thing which Congress and his predecessor in office were called on to decide, and which they did decide, when the one passed and the other approved the act. And he has now no more authority to pronounce his judgment on that act than any other individual in society. It is not his province to decide on the Constitutionality of statutes which Congress has passed, and his predecessors approved

There is another sentiment, in this part of the message, which we should hardly have expected to find in a paper which is supposed, whoever may have drawn it up, to have passed under the review of professional characters. The message declares that this limitation to create no other Bank is unconstitutional, because, although Congress may use the discretion vested in them, "they may not limit the discretion of their successors.” This reason is almost too superficial to require an answer. Every one, at all accustomed to the consideration of such subjects, knows that every Congress can bind its successors to the same extent that it can bind itself: the power of Congress is always the same; the authority of law always the same. It is true, we speak of the twentieth Congress, and the twenty-first Congress; but this is only to denote the period of time, or to mark the successive organizations of the House of Representatives under the successive periodical elections of its members. As a politic body, as the legislative power of the Government, Congress is always continuous, always identical. A particular Congress, as we speak of it,-for instance, the present Congress,--can no farther restrain itself from doing what it may choose to do at the next session, than it can restrain any succeeding Congress from doing what it may choose.