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 Cornell University Law Library 
 
 THE GIFT. OF 
 
 Mr. p.L. Baldw^^ 
 
 Goidwin Smith Library 
 ... C.Qr.n.e.ll....Un,iv.e.r.3.i.t.y,.... Ithaca, ..M.......Y.. 
 
 Date .Q.c..t....22.,1953 
 
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The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024322947 
 
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SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 
 
 OF 
 
 Hon. THOMAS F. MARSHALL. 
 
 
 •- 
 
 EDITED BY W. L. BARRE. 
 
 ' HiB eloquence is classic in its at^Io, 
 Not brilliant with explosive coruscations 
 Of heterogenous thought, at random caught 
 And scattered like a shower of shooting Btars 
 
 That end in darkness 
 
 His earnest and undazzled eye ho keeps 
 
 Fixed on the sun of Truth, and breathes his words 
 
 As easily as eagles cleave the air, 
 
 And never pauses till the hight is won, 
 
 And ail who listen follow where he leads." 
 
 CIN'CINlf ATI : 
 APPLEGATE & COMPANY, 
 
 4^ JIAIN STREET, 
 1858. 
 
Bss7af 
 
 Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1858, 
 
 By APPLEGATE & CO., 
 
 in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of Ohio. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION, containing a Biographical Sketch of Mr. Mar- 
 shall, by the Editor 3 
 
 REPORT ON THE SOUTH CAROLINA ORDINANCE OF NUL- 
 LIFICATION, made to the Kentucky Legislature, January 
 9th, 1833 13 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE A WHIG CONVENTION, held 
 
 at Frankfort, Ky., on the 6th of July, 1834 26 
 
 REPORT ON THE JUDICIARY, made to the Kentucky Legisla- 
 ture, on the 22d of December, 1836 47 
 
 REPORT ON BANKS, made to the Kentucky Legislature, on the 
 
 15th of February, 1840 '. 57 
 
 SLAVERY LETTERS ADDRESSED TO THE EDITORS OF THE 
 FRANKFORT COMMONWEALTH, containing the argument 
 in favor of the constitutionality of the law of 1833, " Prohib- 
 iting the importation of Slaves" into the State of Kentucky, 
 and also defending the f)ropriety and policy of that law, in 
 reply to a pamphlet of Robert Wickliffe, Sen., and to the 
 views taken by other enemies of the law, — published in De- 
 cember, 1840 84-101-113 
 
 SPEECH ON THE RESOLUTIONS TO CENSURE JOHN QUINCY 
 ADAMS, delivered in the House of Representatives of the 
 United States, January 25, 26 and 28, 1842 142 
 
 TO THE PUBLIC, issued to the people of the 10th Congressional 
 District, while Mr. Marshall was a candidate for Congress, in 
 1845, in reply to certain questions propounded to the several 
 
 candidates 187 
 
 iii 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 FAOB 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED IN LEXINGTON, KY., ON THE OCCA- 
 SION OF THE REMOVAL OF C. M. CLAY'S PRESS, 
 August 18th, 1845 196 
 
 ADDRESS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF RICHARD H. 
 MENEFEB, delivered before the Law Society of Transylvania 
 University, in Lexington, Ky., April 12, 1841 213 
 
 SPEECH ON THE BILL TO APPROPRIATE THE PROCEEDS 
 OF THE SALES OF THE PUBLIC LANDS, AND GRANT 
 PRE-EMPTION RIGHTS, delivered in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives of the United States, on the 6th of July, 1841 232 
 
 ADDRESS ON TEMPERANCE, delivered in the Hall of the House 
 of Representatives, before the Congressional Total Abstinence 
 Society, there assembled 255 
 
 REPORT OP DEBATE BETWEEN HONS. JOHN J. CRITTEN- 
 DEN, AND L. W. POWELL, Versailles, Ky., July 10th, 1848 269 
 
 ARTICLES FROM THE OLD GUARD, edited by Mr. Marshall, at 
 Frankfort, Ky., in 1850. 
 
 Number i. — The New Constitittion 303 
 
 Number ii.— The Judioiart 320 
 
 Number iii. — The Judiciary 338 
 
 Number iv. — The Judiciary 352 
 
 Number t. — The Legislative Department — Ben. Hardin — Pub- 
 wo Debt — Internal Improvement — The Public 
 
 Expenditure 367 
 
 Number vi. — Ben. Hardin — The Public Expenditure — Inter- 
 nal Improvement — Public Debt — Sinking Fund 385 
 Number til — Internal Improvement — James Guthrie 402 
 
 LETTER TO THE LOUISVILLE JOURNAL, advocating the claims 
 of Mr. Crittenden over those of Mi'. Dixon, for a seat in the 
 Senate of the United States, written in November, 1851 409 
 
 SPEECH IN OPPOSITION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE 
 KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION, delivered at Ver- 
 sailles, Ky., June 25th, 1855 432 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It would seem that a book can not -witli propriety be 
 ushered into the world without some account of the author, 
 and of the motives which led the editor to its publication. 
 As a Kentuckian born, and many years younger than the 
 author of the following articles, I have from childhood been 
 taught to consider him as one of the sons of my native 
 State, who may justly claim a position in the front ranks of 
 those whom she cherishes as jewels which are destined to 
 form that coronet which is to adorn her historic brow. We 
 of Kentucky, young and old, hold thq Hon. Thomas F. 
 Marshall as one of the most effective and gifted of all her 
 popular orators. His reputation, brilliant from his first 
 appearance upon the public stage, has been principally that 
 of a fascinating stump-speaker. For twenty four years, 
 whatever changes his political opinions may have been 
 supposed to have undergone — whatever measures, man, or 
 party, he may have seen occasion to support — ^he has been 
 the idol of popular assemblies — and, as a speaker, the ad- 
 miration even of his political opponents. 
 
 His success in this way, coupled with other passages, both 
 in his private and public life, and coupled also with the fact, 
 that none of his popular, or forensic speeches have ever been 
 published or reported, save three — which may be considered 
 popiilar, and which appear in the following pages — has in- 
 duced the idea with many of his countrymen, who have never 
 ■ heard and do not know him, that he is merely a brilliant 
 declaimer, without depth of learning, solidity of genius, or 
 
 (3) 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 steadiness of principle. Careless himself of liis intellectual 
 progeny, as the bird of the desert, he has chosen to pre- 
 serve nothing whatever, of all those great efforts at the bar, 
 and very little of those popular addresses which have given 
 him what fame he has; he has left his memory and repu- 
 tation to oblivion, or to the care of some friend who takes 
 more interest in the matter than he has chosen to do. I 
 have sought, therefore, to collect the scattered evidences of 
 this man's great and profound talents, his stern consistency 
 of principle, and the sturdy courage with which he has sus- 
 tained it, through all the changes of party for twenty-five 
 years, and to give them in a pei'manent form to the Public. 
 Whether we have acted prudently in this matter, — 
 whether it had been better for Mr. Marshall, that his 
 writings, few as they are, should have been left in their 
 dispersed condition, the public must and will decide. Ko 
 criticism that we could pronounce in advance upon our own 
 book could possibly change the case or affect the verdict. 
 Yet we must be allowed to make one remark, as to the 
 peculiar intellectual character of the author. His most dis- 
 tinctive trait is his versatility — not versatility of principle, 
 • but of genius and of manner. Let any one read his report 
 on Banking, and the Principles of Paper Currency, and then 
 turn to the oration on the life and character of Eichard H. 
 Menefee, — would he conjecture that they were from the 
 same pen, the product of the same mind? Yet there is 
 nothing in the entire series we have collected, which will 
 give the faintest idea of his style as a public speaker — ^we 
 mean what we call in Kentucky a stump-speaker. Perhaps 
 a few passages from his letter to the Louisville Journal, a 
 very few from his reply to the questions put to him when a 
 candidate for Congress, in 1845, in relation to the slave law, 
 still fewer in reply to Mr. Adams, in 1842, may convey 
 some shadowy notion of it. We have not made this com- 
 pilation to show what manner of stump-speaker, popular 
 orator, or declaimer he was, but to show that in the intel- 
 lectual scale, he is something higher, better, purer than all, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 6 
 
 Mr. Marshall Mmself has been frequently heard to say, 
 that the world is entirely mistaken in this matter of fine 
 speaking, fine writing, and fine conversation. He thinks 
 that the talenta are entirely different, — a speech can not he 
 reported, or an essay spoken. The man who writes speeches 
 that would fire a multitude, will never be read by any 
 body. The man who would attempt to deliver before a 
 crowd, the finest essay ever penned by human genius, as a 
 speech, would inevitably disperse it. Fox wrote speeches, 
 no body ever reads him. Sir James Macintosh spoke essays, 
 no mortal ever listeUed to him. Yet England crowded to 
 hear Fox, and all England still reads and praises Sir James. 
 Conversation differs from both. He, who in company 
 bursts into splendid declamation, or delivers sage and sus- 
 tained discourses, though drawn with the power and beauty 
 of Addison, will be shunned by every one. The man 
 who combines all these powers in perfection, is the greatest 
 of human geniuses. "We have heard Mr. Marshall say 
 that ho man ever succeeded in all, save Lord Bolingbroke, 
 the ablest orator in England, the finest writer iii Europe, 
 and the most elegant and agreeable drawing-room gentle- 
 man in the world. "We will attempt no description of Mr. 
 Marshall as a public speaker, or the means by which he 
 chains to him for hours and hours the largest crowds, 
 some times composed of all sorts of people, and again purely 
 of the most refined and educated classes. 
 
 He is now engaged in delivering what Be calls discourses 
 on History. Invitations pour upon him from all parts of 
 the country — villages, towns, and cities. How he is dis- 
 charging his new vocation, or vindicating his past repu- 
 tation, will best be seen in the colunins of the Louis- 
 ville Journal, during the twenty consecutive discourses he 
 delivered in that city, without note, memorandum or a 
 scrap of paper before him throughout. He improvises in a 
 style rarely heard out of Italy. Though we have no in- 
 tention of writing his biography, we must be allowed to 
 give the leading incidents of his life, as throwing some light 
 
b INTRODUCTION. 
 
 upon his writings, and offering some evidence and explana- 
 tion of the character we have ventured to give him. 
 
 Thomas Fkancis Marshall, the eldest sou of Doctor 
 Louis Marshall, was born in Frankfort, Kentucky, June 
 seventh, 1801. His father, now aged eighty-five, and who 
 is still living, was the youngest brother of the late John 
 Marshall, Chief Justice of the United States. At the time 
 of the birth of our author. Doctor Marshall resided in the 
 county of Woodford, Kentucky, where he still resides, upon 
 the farm settled by his father, Col. Thomas Marshall, of 
 Virginia, in the year 1783. Our author's early education 
 was conducted by his mother, Mrs. Agatha Marshall, till 
 his twelfth year, when he entered a grammar school, and 
 commenced the study of ihe dead languages. When he was 
 about fourteen, his father procured an accomplished classical 
 scholar as teacher in his family. By this gentleman were 
 instructed in the Latin and Greek languages some of the 
 finest classical scholars in the Western country, such as 
 Doctor Robert J. Breckenridge, Doctor Louis Green, now 
 President of Danville College, Ky., the Eev. John A. 
 M'Lung, and various others. Our author, under his father's 
 directions, pursued his classical studies tiU. he was twenty 
 years of age, and was never sent to the university, or to 
 any public college. At twenty he was sent to Virginia to 
 study history, as the basis of jurisprudence, and moral and 
 political philosophy. It was not the Chief Justice, but Mr. 
 James Marshall, of Frederic county, Virginia, with whom 
 he studied, a recluse student, and a man of great and varied 
 erudition. He continued his studies there for two j'ears, and 
 returned to his father's at twenty-two years of age, where 
 he pursued the course of reading marked out for him by 
 his uncle till he lost his health, and was utterly prostrated 
 by disease, it waB thought, in consequence of his intense 
 application to his books. He was twenty-five years old 
 before he was able to resume his studies, when he com- 
 menced the study of law, under the tuition of the Hon. 
 John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky. At twenty -seven he 
 
INTEODUCTION. 7 
 
 obtained liicense to practice law in the courts of Kentucky. 
 His proclivities are always said to have been toward politics 
 as a science, and oratory as an art. He had seen little of 
 the world. Educated at home in the country, then sent to 
 Virginia to a seqjuded country place, then sickening almost 
 to death, and at last having fitted himself in the law, at 
 least far enough to obtain , a license, he settled down in the 
 little village of Yersailles. In 1829 he went to Virginia, 
 deserting his little village law-office to attend the debates 
 in the Convention then sitting in Richmond. Madison, 
 Monroe, Chief Justice Marshall, Randolph, Leigh, C. John- 
 son, Tazwell, and a host of others of scarcely less renown 
 were there. He heard them all, for nearly five months, 
 residing for the most part with the Chief Justice. This 
 was the best school he had ever seen. 
 
 In February 1830, he went to "Washington, and arrived 
 there the day before Col. Hayne spoke on the celebrated 
 Foote's resolutions. He heard Col. Hayne, and afterward 
 Mr. Webster. From that time his mind took a political 
 direction, and he bent himself to the study of the political 
 questions of the day, and entered upon their discussion 
 before the people of his native county with a sweeping en- 
 thusiasm, which still characterizes him. Parties at that time 
 in Woodford were nearly equally divided. In 1832, after 
 the veto of the United States Bank, Mr. Marshall ran for 
 the Legislature as the friend of Mr. Clay, and was elected 
 in a county polling twelve hundred votes, by a majority of 
 two hundred and sixty-five. During the session which 
 ensued, he was made chairman of the committee on the 
 communication from the State of South Carolina, and made 
 the report which will be found in the following pages. In 
 the spring he settled in Louisville with a sincere purpose, 
 as we have understood, to prosecute his profession, for he 
 was, to use one of his own expressions, " steeped in poverty 
 to the very lips." But his evil genius still followed him, 
 and he again plunged into politics. Twice he represented 
 the city of Louisville in the Legislature of Kentucky, and 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 in 1837 ran for Congress against Mr. Graves, the regular 
 whig nominee. He was beaten of course, and by an im- 
 mense majority — ^upward of two thousand — his adopted city 
 casting a majority of four hundred against him. " The iron 
 entered into his soul." " 'T were vain to paint to what his 
 feelings grew." He left Louisville instantly and returned 
 to "Woodford. The next year he ran for the Legislature 
 from that county, and was elected without opposition. 
 The Legislature rejected him, as being ineligible for want 
 of the full year's residence. He was elected again without 
 opposition, and the next year also. It was at these sessions 
 that he distinguished himself as a debater, on the question 
 of the Charleston, Lexington and Cincinnati railroad, in 
 opposition to the measure, contending for the city of Louis- 
 ville as the terminus, "heaping coals of fire," as he said, 
 "upon her ungrateful head for the manner in which she 
 had treated him two years before." 
 
 During all this time, and at fevery session, he was the 
 stanch advocate in debate of the slave law of 1832, resist- 
 ing its repeal. In 1840 he refused to run for the Legislature. 
 That winter the most strenuous efforts were made to repeal 
 his favorite law against the importation of slaves. He had 
 no seat in the Legislature, but at the urgent requests of the 
 friend's of the law, presented the arguments he had so often 
 made on the floor of the house, in the form of letters to the 
 ComTQonwealth, which will be found in the following pages. 
 In the spring of 1841, he was elected to the Congress of the 
 United States, from the Ashland district, without opposition, 
 and commenced his brief career there at the celebrated called 
 session, John Tyler acting President. He spoke often in 
 Congress. There are, however, but two of his Congressional 
 speeches fully reported. Disgusted with the manner in 
 which his first speech was reported, with characteristic irri- 
 tability, at the close of his second, he insulted the reporters, 
 and ordered them "not to attempt again to pass upon the 
 public their infernal gibberish for his English." Thej- quit 
 reporting him for some time, and took their revenge by 
 
INTEODUCTION". 9 
 
 squibbing him in tbeir letters written from Washington. 
 At this session Mr. Marshall saw proper to separate from 
 the whigs on several very important measures. He voted 
 against Mr. Clay's Bank Bill, and worse than that, he 
 argued against it on the floor of the House, it has been said, 
 with great force. The speech has never been reported, in 
 whole or in part. He was in favor of a Bank of the United 
 States, but objected to the form of the charter. Mr. Adams 
 agreed and voted with him. He voted against the bank- 
 rupt law. He was opposed to striking out of the Constitu- 
 tion the veto power. He was sure always to maintain his 
 opinions by his speeches. He contended that he was a whig, 
 and that the whig party had departed from their own long- 
 cherished principles. He ridiculed Mr. Tyler's Adminis- 
 tration on the floor, saying that when the history of the 
 country was written, that Administration might be put in 
 a parenthesis, and defined from Lindley Murray, " a paren- 
 thesis to be a clause of a sentence enclosed between black 
 lines or brackets, which should be pronounced in a low tone 
 of voice, and might W left out altogether without injuring 
 the sense." 
 
 Mr. Marshall had offended the leader of his party 
 deeply. Whether he intended to do so or not, it is per- 
 fectly evident he was careless about the matter. "Upon 
 the expiration of the 27th Congress, he returned home, 
 and declared publicly, in Lexington, that he would not 
 again support Mr. Clay for the Presidency, and declined 
 being a candidate for a second term. This was in 1843. 
 The question of annexation of Texas came up in 1844. 
 Before Mr. Clay wrote his Raleigh letter, Mr. Marshall 
 declared himself in favor of annexation, and spoke, upon 
 the invitation of many persons, whigs among others, on 
 that siibject in Lexington. 
 
 Mr. Marshall is known to have declared to a whig 
 friend, that if Mr. Clay would advocate the measure, he 
 would vote for him for the Presidency. Mr. Clay wrote 
 his Kaleigh letter, and Mr. Marshall voted for Col. Polk. 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lu 1845, Mr. Maeshall ran for Congress against the Hon. 
 Garrett Davis. The district had gone for Mr. Clay, by a 
 majority of 1500, and for Governor Ovs^sley over Butler 
 by 1300. Mr. Marshall was beaten by Mr. Davis 700 
 votes. In the canvass he gave a full history of the 27th 
 Congress, and vindicated his vote for Mr. Polk on national, 
 not party grounds — declaring that, under similar circum- 
 stances, he would have voted against General "Washington, 
 and that the territory between the Sabine and the E.io 
 Grande, and stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the 
 Pacific, was worth more to the United States than four 
 years' administration of the Government by any man who 
 ever had been or ever would be born. 
 
 In 1846, he raised a volunteer troop of cavalry, who 
 chose him for their captain, and served in that capacity 
 in' Mexico for twelve months. He lost the opportunity of 
 being in the battle of Buena Vista, without fault of his. 
 "We know not what he felt; we doubt whether he did 
 himself. A convention was afterward called to revise the 
 Constitution of Kentucky. Mr. Marshall ran for a seat 
 in that body and was beaten, because he was in favor 
 of reviving his old favorite, the slave law, which had been 
 repealed, and he desired to incorporate it into the consti- 
 tution as part of the fundamental law. 
 
 Upon the submission of the new constitution to the 
 people, he edited the " Old Guard" in opposition. The 
 articles which he wrote for that paper will be found in the 
 following pages. He was afterward elected from "Wood- 
 ford for the session in which the contest for the Senate 
 between Mr. Crittenden and Mr. Dixon took place. He 
 stood by his early friend — ^his master, as he terms him — 
 Mr. Crittenden, and during the session wi-ote his celebrated 
 letter to the Louisville Journal, defending himself from 
 the charge of hostility to Mr. Clay. He canvassed a large 
 pai't of the State for General Scott against General Pierce. 
 In 1855, he declared his opposition to the American party, 
 and stated his grounds in a speech which will be found in 
 
INTRODUCTION. 11 
 
 tMs work. In 1856 he removed to Chicago, where he still 
 claims his residence. He returned to Kentucky in August 
 of that year, to manage a law suit of great importance, in 
 which he was successful. While in Lexington, his friends 
 literally forced him, understanding that he was opposed to 
 Mr. Buchanan, to take the stump. Again he canvassed 
 considerable portions of the State, and got to Versailles 
 the day of the election. His exertions and exposure, dur- 
 ing the most inclement weather, broke down his health. 
 He was attacked by a violent fit of pneumonia, cough, 
 spitting blood, etc., and lay in bed in Erankfort all that 
 winter. 
 
 The engraving affixed to this work is an excellent repre- 
 sentation of his features. In person he is tall, measuring 
 six feet two inches, very erect and well proportioned. He 
 has passed through a variety of scenes in life, and has been 
 associated intimately with many of the most distinguished 
 men of the nineteenth century. Proud and self relying, 
 his obstinacy has been represented as trimming. The 
 writings of his which we publish, extending from 1832 to 
 1855, will best explain the character of his understanding, 
 and answer the charge of inconsistency. The fault of the 
 man seems to us to be that he has endeavored to subject 
 the action of parties to the rule of a severe logic, from 
 which he himself never departs. He seems to be a literary 
 politician, a class which has failed, from Eienzi to Guizot 
 and Macauley. 
 
 As to Mr. Marshall's personal history, were we in- 
 clined, we could make a tolerable novel out of it. He has 
 fought four duels ; and, amid pohtical pursuits and philo- 
 sophical studies, has found time to say and do many eccen- 
 tric things. He has found his way into our leading maga- 
 zines, and his jokes are considered so very funnj-, that 
 wretched reporters for newspapers undertake, in their 
 manner and language, to convey the spirit of his immor- 
 tal wit. "We could, from sure information, and with per- 
 fect fidelity to the word, communicate some of his jests. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 but will not. His is that sarcastic levity of tongue, " tlie 
 stinging of a heart the world hath stung." 
 
 Yet those who know him best say that he is kind and 
 gentle, and generous to a fault. His writings show, that 
 although he diifered with Mr. Clay, voted against him, and 
 thwarted him as far as he could in his policy, yet, upon 
 the instant that Mr. Clay touched him where they could 
 agree, he sustained that great statesman without the 
 memory of all that the leader had inflicted upon the 
 subordinate. Mr. Marshall had been Mr. Clay's friend, 
 when Mr. Clay was in a dead minority. Mr. Marshall 
 abandoned Mr. Clay when he was at the head of an 
 overwhelming majority. It has been ascribed to family 
 prejudice. Whether Mr. Marshall will ever explain the 
 real cause of the unfriendly relations between Mr. Clay 
 and himself, we know not. What may be his future course 
 of life, we know not ; we have already trenched so far 
 upon his private history that we fear to have given offense 
 to him. He may die and give no sign, or he may live to 
 write the history of his country, and to sketch the charac- 
 ters of the great men of the first part of the nineteenth 
 century. He knew many of them, and is a keen observer 
 of events, with a faithful memory; but it is of his mind, 
 not of his manners, his feelings, his peculiarities, personal 
 habits, or the unknown griefs which may have been the 
 cause of his so called eccentricities, that we are the herald, 
 and that through the breathings of that mind itself, in the 
 works we present. 
 
 W, L. BAREE. 
 
SPEECHES AND WRITINGS 
 
 HON, THOMAS F. MAKSHALL 
 
 REPORT ON THE SOUTH CAROLINA ORDINANCE OF NULLI- 
 FICATION, 
 
 Made to the Kentucky J/egislature, January the 9ih, 1833. 
 
 The people of South Carolina met in Convention at Columbia, in November 
 
 1832. Sustained by the influence of John C. Calhoun, they denounced the 
 existing revenue laws as unconstitional, null and void. This assumption 
 of a right to sit in judgment upon the acts of the Federal Government, 
 created intense' excitement, particularly throughout the Southern States, 
 The Governor of Kentucky, transmitted the proceedings of the Columbia 
 Convention to the State Legislature, with his Message to that body, during 
 its Session of 1832 — 33. They were referred for consideration to a select 
 Conmiittee, of which Mr. Marshall was Chairman. On the 9th of January, 
 
 1833, he made the following report: — 
 
 The select committee of the House of Representatives, to 
 whom was referred the message of his Excellency, the Governor, 
 transmitting the documents which contain the proceedings of 
 the Convention, held at Columbia, in South Carolina, in Novem- 
 ber last, have examined those papers with much care, and beg 
 leave respectfully to report to the house the views they have 
 taken thereon : 
 
 The Convention have declared that the existing laws of the 
 United States, imposing duties upon the importation of foreign 
 commodities into the United States, are iniquitous in their prin- 
 ciple, and most oppressive and ruinous in their operation; and, 
 moreover, a palpable infraction of the Federal Compact. They 
 
 (13) 
 
14 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 have proceeded to decide, authoritatively, that these laws are in 
 violation of the Constitution of the United States, and there- 
 fore, null and void ; and have directed a course of measures to 
 the Legislature of that State, by which their operation may be 
 obstructed within the territorial limits of South Carolina. In 
 the address to the States, a scheme of general taxation is sub- 
 mitted, with a distinct understanding that it is a concession on 
 the part of South Carolina, which, if promptly met, and in a 
 "becoming manner, will be made by her to preserve the Union ; 
 and that scheme is, " that the same rate of duty may be im- 
 posed upon the protected articles that shall be imposed upon 
 the unprotected, provided that no more revenue be raised than 
 is necessary to meet the demands of the government for con- 
 stitutional purposes ; and provided, also, that a duty, substan- 
 tially uniform, be imposed upon all foreign articles." It is 
 abundantly obvious, that South Carolina reserves to herself the 
 right of determining what are " constitutional objects ;" and 
 should the principle of discrimination in the impost system be 
 abandoned, there is no certainty that the- future revenue laws 
 would not be nullified. In the proviso for a substantial uni- 
 formity in duties upon all foreign imports, it is impossible not 
 to see a field at once laid open for future disputation and dif- 
 ferences. If the intentions of South Carolina be really to 
 prevent future difficulties, she should define, with certainty, 
 what are the " constitutional purposes" for which revenue' may 
 be raised. The States should, also, require that the distinc- 
 tion be clearly drawn between an apparent and " substantial 
 uniformity" in the duties imposed upon all foreign imports. 
 The Constitution of the United States declares, that " all du- 
 ties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the Uni- 
 ted States :" and your committee are under the impression 
 that the requisition is complied with in the present system. 
 The distinction taken, in the proposition made to the States, 
 would seem to imply, that where a duty was laid upon an arti- 
 cle of foreign growth or manufacture, a corresponding tax 
 should be imposed upon similar articles of domestic production. 
 The effect of' such a principle is too obvious for commentary. 
 
NULLIFICATION. 15 
 
 and effectually destroys any hope the friends of American man- 
 ufactures might derive from the first branch of the proposition, 
 allowing the same rate of duty to be imposed upon protected 
 articles that should be imposed upon unprotected. It would 
 be a great abuse of terms to call any article protected, when 
 loaded with an excise equal to the duty imposed upon its for- 
 eign rival. This were not only to forbid the laying a duty, 
 with a view to protection, but to prohibit such incidental pro- 
 tection as would arise from the imposition of duties laid with 
 a sole view to revenue, and adjusted to that standard. 
 
 It will not be' expected of the committee to enter upon the 
 debated ground of the tariff. They may be permitted, how- 
 ever, to observe, that they can scarcely reconcile the opera- 
 tion of that system, as described in the South Carolina ad- 
 dress, with the increase of our navigation, and the extension 
 of our mercantile operations, as communicated by the Pres- 
 ident of the United States in his message to the present Con- 
 gress, or the flourishing state of internal trade which we know 
 to exist. The President says, "the returns which have been 
 made out since we last met, will show an increase, during the 
 preceding year, of more than 80,000 tuns in our shipping, and 
 of near forty million dollars in the aggregate of our imports 
 and exports." This picture of growing prosperity, is scarcely 
 compatible with a system which is represented as spreading 
 ruin and desolation over every class of the community, except 
 a few capitalists engaged in manufactures, prematurely begun 
 and artificially sustained. It -can not be reconciled with the 
 depression of agriculture, or the idea that that portion of the 
 United States which furnishes almost the whole export upon 
 which foreign trade is based, is ground into poverty and in- 
 significance by an oppressive government. 
 
 The committee are unable to perceive that the whole amount 
 of duties falls upon southern productions. They believe that 
 the people of South Carolina pay, like the people every where 
 else, the people of the manufacturing States as well as others, 
 in proportion to their consumption. 
 
 The committee believe that the people of this Common- 
 
16 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 wealth have considered the tariff, so far as it operates to the 
 encouragement of American manufacturers, as a national mea- 
 sure, contributing to our strength and independence, and as 
 a measure decidedly of prospective defense. That its ultimate 
 effect is to develop, to the uttermost, the great natural resour- 
 ces of our country, to enlarge the sphere of our domestic in- 
 dustry and domestic commerce, and to accelerate our advance 
 to that point of opulence and power, which the peculiar ad- 
 vantages of our situation would seem to indicate. Free trade 
 prevails between the States of this Union. The Constitution 
 provides for th« unrestrained circulation of commodities, 
 throughout this vast continent. And we can but believe that 
 the permanent residence of the mechanical arts, in any part 
 of it, will be favorahle to every branch of industry, in every 
 other part of it. Arts and manufactures require encourage- 
 ment: they have flourished most in those countries where the 
 government has extended its patronage, and richly have they 
 rewarded, in their matured state, the generous protection 
 which shielded their infancy. In the full perfection in which 
 they 'exist in other countries, at what conceivable point of 
 time, or under what conceivable state of things, could indi- 
 vidual enterprize and capital enter, unaided, into a contest in 
 which the power and resources of foreign governments would 
 certainly be thrown into the scale against them ? To deny the 
 principle of protection, is to prohibit manufactures for ever to 
 the United States. -^ 
 
 Your committee, without going further into this subject, or 
 without undertaking to decide the extent to which protection 
 ought to be afforded, would remark, that the proposition from 
 South Carolina, should have been made rather in the nature 
 of a remonstrance to Congress, than in the character of an 
 address to the State governments. It is in the style of a pro- 
 position for a commercial treaty between sovereign States, in 
 which she lays down her ultimatum, and threatens that, unless 
 it be met speedily, she will dissolve the political connexion 
 already subsisting between the American States. In the view 
 of your committee, that connexion is already dissolved, so far. 
 
NULLIFICATION. 17 
 
 at least, as the Ordinance of South Carolina can efiFect so por- 
 tentous an event. In the view of your committee, the provi- 
 sions of that Ordinance, and the principles upon -which those 
 who framed it have chosen to rest its vindication, are in 
 direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, and 
 if sustained, are immediately subversive of the American Re- 
 public. ' Though, from the tone assumed by Carolina in her 
 address to the States, there is little hope that persuasion or 
 reasoning will produce any effect upon her, your committee have 
 still thought that, in a crisis so momentous, we should spread 
 our constitutional opinions upon the archives of our State. 
 
 South Carolina, under the lead of her ablest statesmen in 
 1832, proclaims a law, laying a duty with a view to protec- 
 tion, and all appropriations for th-e purposes of international 
 improvement to be plain, palpable violations of the federal 
 compact, and atrocious usurpations upon the part of the 
 general governaient — a system of legislative plunder, riveted 
 upon her by an irresponsible despotism. 
 
 In 1816, this very State, by her champion in Congress, re- 
 commends to the general government, the protection of manu- 
 factures, with a force of argument not easily resisted. 
 
 In 1819, the same talented champion of the South recom- 
 mends " a judicious system of roads and canals, constructed 
 for the convenience of commerce," "such a system," says Mr. 
 Calhoun, in his report on roads and canals submitted to Con- 
 gress on the 7th January, 1819, from the department of war, 
 "such a system, by consolidating our union, increasing our 
 wealth and fiscal capacity, would add greatly to our resources 
 in war." 
 
 It is of the last importance that judicial decisions should be 
 uniform. If the nation depended for its constitutional law 
 upon South Carolina, it must be confessed that the precedents 
 would be found in irreconcilable conflict. In truth, she led 
 most prominently, in the initiation of that system, to put down 
 which, she would now rend the Union. 
 
 The Convention, however, affirm that nullification, or the 
 right of a State to pronounce an authoritative judgment upon 
 
18 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 the constitutionality of a law, is a right under the Con- 
 stitution. They deny that this is a revolutionary movement. 
 They disclaim the idea of rebellion. As the Ordinance is the 
 only existing specimen of nullification, it would be well, per- 
 haps, in the solution of this question, to compare its provi- 
 sions with the Constitution. That instrument declares that 
 the judicial power therein delegated, shall extend to all cases 
 in law and equity arising under the Constitution, the laws of 
 the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, 
 under their authority. The Ordinance forbids an appeal to 
 the Supreme Court of the United States, in any case in law 
 or equity, in which the apts of Congress of the 19th of May, 
 1828, and of the 14th of July, 1832, are, or shall be drawn 
 in question. 
 
 The Constitution proclaims itself, and the laws of the Uni- 
 ted States made in pursuance thereof, and all the treaties 
 made, or which shall be made under the authority of the Uni- 
 ted States, to be the supreme law of the land, and the judges 
 of every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Con- 
 stitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 The Ordinance declares itself paramount and binding upon 
 the citizens of South Carolina, and makes all officers, judicial 
 and others, within the State, swear to observe and execute it. 
 
 The Constitution provides that all duties, imposts and 
 excises, shall be uniform throughout the United States. The 
 Ordinance declares that no duties shall be collected within the 
 limits of Carolina, under the existing revenue laws of the 
 Union, although they are in force every where else throughout 
 the United States. 
 
 The Constitution gives to Congress the power to provide 
 for calling forth the militia of the Union to execute the laws, 
 suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. The Ordinance 
 declares, that if Congress attempts to execute her laws by 
 force. South Carolina will organize a separate government, 
 and maintain her Ordinance at all hazards. 
 
 Your committee conceive the statement of these propo- 
 sitions to render all argument unnecessary. 
 
NULLIFICATION 
 
 19 
 
 The extent of the powers of the general government depend 
 most certainly on the Constitution ; it is strictly a government 
 of delegated powers, and the powers not delegated to the 
 United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the 
 States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the 
 people. But where a power of a sovereign character is 
 expressly granted by that instrument, it would be difficult to 
 maintain that the same power is among the reserved rights of 
 the States. The judicial power in the case under considera- 
 tion, has been delegated, in express terms, to the general 
 government. 
 
 The Convention felt that to maintain their Ordinance, they 
 must abandon the Constitution, and seek elsewhere for argu- 
 ment and illustration. They have accordingly done so, and 
 found the judicial power, not among the reserved rights of the 
 States, but in a theory, partly of their own construction and 
 partly borrowed from certain resolutions of the Virginia 
 Legislature, passed in times of high party excitement. As to 
 the authority of the resolutions in favor of nullification, your 
 Gomrjittee would remark that the construction given to them 
 by the Convention, has been disavowed in a published letter 
 of Mr. Madison, their venerable author. 
 
 Your committee beg leave to give their views of this theory, 
 productive, as it is likely to be, of such important practical 
 results. 
 
 It is said that, by our memorable revolution, " the British 
 Colonies in America became, and were declared to be, sove- 
 reign and independent States ; that as distinct political commu- 
 nities, they entered into a compact, treaty, league or alliance, 
 under the style and title of the Constitution of the United 
 States ; but ,that each remained as absolutely and uncontrol- 
 ably sovereign as under the articles of confederation, or as 
 any other prince, potentate or sovereign upon earth; that 
 there has not existed at any time such a political body as the 
 people of the United States ; that there is not now, nor has 
 there ever been such a relation existing as that of a citizen 
 of New Hampshire and a citizen of South Carolina bound 
 
20 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 together in the same social compact; that there is not now, 
 nor has there ever been any direct allegiance between the 
 citizens of South Carolina and the Federal Government; the 
 relation between them is through the State ; that the general 
 government is in fact a compact between sovereigns, imposing 
 merely a moral obligation upon the States not to exercise cer- 
 tain powers, which still remain in them, and which are in fact 
 unalienable, though we are accustomed to say inaccurately, 
 that they have been surrendered by the States ; that the 
 extent of the powers of the general government depends upon 
 the States ; in short, that they are as sovereign as Great 
 Britain, France and Russia would be in an alliance, offensive 
 and defensive ; that it follows from the nature of their politi- 
 cal connexion, and is essential to their preservation, that they, 
 like other sovereigns in the absence of a common arbiter, 
 should be the interpreters of their own agreements, and that 
 in their character of sovereign arbiters, they have the unques- 
 tionable right to redress violations and infractions of their 
 compact^ and to choose the mode and measure of such redress; 
 that the compact has been violated palpably; that South 
 Carolina has interposed, and by counter legislation, which, 
 from the principles above laid down, is, and must be par- 
 amount within her own limits, arrested the operation of the 
 acts, which transcend the charter; "South Carolina can not 
 and will not yield to any department of the federal govern- 
 ment, and still less to the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 the creature of a government, which is itself the creature 
 of the States — a right, which enters into the essence of all 
 sovereignty, and without which, it would become a bauble 
 and a name." 
 
 Who does not discern in this system, the principles of utter 
 disorganization ? It is obvious that the judicial power, in such 
 cases as that under consideration, is as clearly delegated to 
 the government of the United States, as any other power 
 whatever. If South Carolina could not surrender this, as 
 being of the essence of her sovereignty, and therefore unalien- 
 able, she could surrender no other sovereign power, legis- 
 
NULLIFICATION. 21 
 
 lative or executive ; the doctrine denies the validity of the 
 Constitution, and nullifies the whole instrument. It would 
 seem useless in this view of the matter, to appeal to the Con- 
 stitution : we must drive our inquiries higher and wider — we 
 must explore the foundations upon which that instrument 
 rests its claims to validity, and settle its authority, before we 
 seek to penetrate its meaning. Let us pursue this metaphy- 
 sical theory (for it seems no less) a little further: They say 
 the powers of the general government are delegated and 
 derivative — the State sovereignties are original and inherent. 
 We would reply, that derivative powers are a trust, and there- 
 fore unalienable, but that original and inherent rights can be 
 granted away. The consequence, that flows from this indis- 
 putable distinction, is, that if the State governments be primi- 
 tively, inherently, and of their own right sovereign, and the 
 Constitution was really derived from that source alone, which 
 is assumed as the basis of the argument in the address of the 
 Convention, then the grants contained in the Constitution are 
 valid, and as we have shown the judicial power to be among 
 them, and extending to the very case under consideration, the 
 Ordinance of nullification, from their own showing, is an ille- 
 gal usurpation of a power, which has been vested in another 
 tribunal. , 
 
 But we will not place the Constitution upon that ground. 
 It is not a mere treaty of alliance between sovereigns, left to 
 the interpretation of the sword ; nor is it dependent, for the 
 execution of its powers, upon the will of twenty-four ab- 
 solutely sovereign governments. The articles of confederation 
 were the act of the State governments. The old Congress was 
 their creature — and a miserably impotent, dependent creature 
 it was — their acts were mere recommendations, and most fre- 
 quently disregarded ; they were a consulting body merely, 
 and the whole executive authority, or rather entire sovereign- 
 ty, resided in the States. The fruits of the revolution were 
 likely to be lost in the evils of an inefficient government, and 
 an imperfect union. The great geniuses who achieved the 
 revolution, perceived the defects of their system, and roused 
 
22 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 the people to a sense of their danger. The Federal Constitui 
 tion does not derive its authority from the Convention that 
 met at Philadelphia. As the act of that body, it was a mere 
 recommendation of a form of government by which the people 
 of the several States might become united. It was adopted, 
 and made law, by Conventions chosen by the people in each 
 State, in the same manner that their State Constitutions are. 
 The grants of power contained in it are not concessions upon 
 the part of the State governments. They are grants from the 
 people of, the States. The State governments did not, and 
 indeed they could not, delegate their authority, which was 
 itself but derivative, but the people, their masters, in adopting 
 the new Constitution, denied them certain powers. The Fed- 
 eral Constitution is the fundamental law of each State, made 
 so by the authority of the people of each State. It is the 
 fundamental law of all the States, made so by the consent of 
 the people of all the States. It created such a body politic 
 as the people of the United States. In the language of Gen. 
 Washingtori, it consolidated their union. 
 
 The science of politics has been thought to have received 
 great improvement from the American revolution, and its 
 soundest principles to have been incorporated in the Federal 
 Constitution. One, and not the least important of these prin- 
 ciples is, that all political and governmental power is deriva- 
 tive. The original or jure divino right, either in States or 
 princes, is gone. Government is the result of a convention 
 between individuals, deriving its just powers from the consent 
 of the governed. There are no original sovereigns — save 
 each individual man in a state of nature, and his sovereignty 
 extends only to himself. All government is a trust, springing 
 out of the necessities of mankind. It is a conventional 
 method, in every instance, by which the strength and reason 
 of many distinct individuals can be united, in such manner as 
 to give to each the power and protection of the whole. A 
 written Constitution is the deed which creates the trust, and 
 provides a mode of interpretation where difficulties arise. No 
 power, short of that which created, can cancel an instrument 
 
NULLIFICATION. 23 
 
 SO solemn and important ; all have an interest in it : nor can 
 it be changed in any other way than by the consent of all, or 
 in such manner as itself provides, or by physical force and 
 revolution. In pursuance of these principles it was made an 
 objection to the articles of confederation, that they had not 
 been ratified by the people, and being dependent upon the 
 State legislatures for their origin, were subject to legislative 
 repeal. The statesmen of that time understood well that a 
 government which was intended to act immediately upon per- 
 sons and property through its own agents, which was to 
 depend upon itself for the execution of its powers, could not 
 be the result of an international compact; that it could hold 
 no claim of allegiance upon individuals unless it flowed from 
 the. people, the pure and only legitimate fountain of power. 
 In the sanctions of the popular authority, therefore, they laid 
 th« deep foundations of our social order, and established the 
 relation of citizen and government, with the corresponding 
 duties of allegiance and protection. Your committee can 
 never believe that government can justly be created in any 
 other way. 
 
 The people of separate and distinct communities are surely 
 competent, voluntarily and upon full deliberation, to unite 
 themselves under one government, with a Constitution con- 
 taining all the safeguards of liberty, and all the powers 
 necessary for its own preservation : and such a Constitution is 
 perpetually binding upon all. Such a one, and drawn from 
 such a source, the Constitution of the United States purports 
 to be ; and such it has been, in its practical operation, for 
 more than forty years, in the constant exercise of those pow- 
 ers which are now denied it. "We, the people," says its 
 caption — "We, the people of the United States, in order to 
 form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic 
 tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the 
 general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
 selves and posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution 
 for the United States of America;" and it has operated these 
 grand results to the full letter of its promise. 
 
24 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 South Carolina ■warns the States against any measure of 
 rashness. Can it be possible that she imagines any State will 
 proceed, in her sovereign capacity, to make war upon her? 
 Does she consider the Constitution so completely at an end, 
 that each State shall seize the sword, which has been com- 
 mitted to our common government? To declare war, is not 
 among the reserved rights. We have no power to enter into 
 alliances, pro or con. Our allegiance to the Constitution 
 requires, that we should obey the call of that power appointed 
 to execute the laws, suppress insurrections, and repel inva- 
 sions. The people of this commonwealth have obeyed that call, 
 for the latter purpose, whether to the north or to the south. 
 May it please Heaven to spare them the proofs of patriotism, 
 which dangers from domestic sources would compel them to 
 furnish. In the contemplation of an event so calamitous, your 
 committee would forget the terms in which South Carolina, 
 announces her lofty resolves, her inflexible determination — 
 terms that would sffem to admit neither of answer nor remon- 
 strance. We would remonstrate, we would adjure South 
 Carolina, or those who guide her counsels, by the blood and 
 sufferings of our common ancestors, not to mar their work; 
 not to insult the memory of the dead; not to embitter the 
 last hours of that small remnant of the revolution, who vet 
 linger upon earth, by demonstrating that a republic, that 
 vision of glory which led them on throijgh toil and privation, 
 was a delusion and a cheat. We would adjure them by their 
 own great names — names won in the service of the United 
 States, and hitherto looked upon as a portion of American 
 wealth, — by the talents so gloriously exerted in defense of 
 those very principles which they now denounce — we would 
 adjure them to be satisfied with lawful fame. Let them not 
 dream of a resemblance between their situation and that of 
 the fathers of the revolution. Mankind will not, and can 
 not, recognize it. Should they succeed in goading enthusiasm 
 to madness ; should they succeed in infusing their own wild 
 passions into the people of the South, and precipitate the 
 United States into all the horrors and dangers of civil war, 
 
NULLiriCATIOSr. 25 
 
 the glory which hallows the tomb of the patriot martyr will 
 not be theirs; their past honors will turn to infamy, and they 
 will set in storm and darkness, amid the deep execrations 
 of all mankind. 
 
26 T. p. MAESHALL. 
 
 AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE A WHIG CONVENTION, 
 
 Held at Frankfort^ Kentucky, on the 5th of July, 1834. 
 
 The Whig party of Kentucky, with great unanimity, opposed the measures 
 of the Jacksonian administration. Denouncing the regal assumptions of 
 power on the part of the Executive, they assembled, in Convention at 
 Frankfort, on the 5th of July, 1834. The following Address was delivered 
 by Mr. Marshall, before the Convention. Its effect upon his large and 
 thoroughly aroused auditory was indescribable. The closing reference to 
 the United States Senate, and allusion to Henet Clay, are most happily 
 conceived. 
 
 Mr. President, — During the memorable struggle between 
 Great Britain and her North American Colonies, it was re- 
 marked by a great statesman in the British Parliament, that 
 the people of other countries, in estimating the measures of 
 government, decided upon the badness of a principle by the 
 extent of the grievance, but that the Colonists judged the ex- 
 tent of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They 
 looked to remote consequences — "they snuffed the approach 
 of despotism in every tainted breeze." Such was the character 
 of our ancestors. They were not stung into rebellion by long 
 and grinding oppression ; they burst no chains, their sensitive 
 ears discerned the clank of fetters at a distance, and they 
 refused to put them on. 
 
 Sir, the war of the revolution was a fearful undertaking. 
 Without resources, without allies, without a government, our 
 fathers braved the perils of a contest in which defeat was sure 
 to be followed by confiscation, dishonor and death; a contest 
 in which, according to every probable calculation, defeat was 
 certain. The measure of the English ministry that provoked 
 it, was an " experiment," and in its immediate operation, a 
 very gentle one. In a pecuniary point of view, the revenue 
 arising from the obnoxious tax was scarcely worth the powder 
 
FEANKFORT CONVENTION. 27 
 
 that was burned at Bunker Hill. In that measure, however, 
 there lurked the germ of political slavery, a seminal principle 
 of future mischief. They resisted it at the threshold. At 
 the period to -which I refer, England was at the topmost hight 
 of pride and grandeur. In the language of the great Senator 
 from Massachusetts, " she had dotted over the whole surface 
 of the globe with her possessions and military posts." In the 
 one hand she held the balance of Europe, and with the other 
 she waved in triusiph the scepter of the seas. Her vast ma- 
 rine served to consolidate her empire, embracing as it did the 
 opposite' extremities of the earth : it gave wings to her power, 
 and to the strength of the lion imparted the speed of the eagle. 
 Under the brilliant administration of Lord Chatham, she had 
 but -recently humbled two of tl}e leading powers of Europe, 
 and wrested from France all her American possessions. . Nour- 
 ished " by her salJitary neglect," her own colonies had been 
 growing, unheeded, into considerable importance. She now 
 turned her attention to them as a rich source of future revenue. 
 Flushed with victory, gorged with success, she determined to 
 make her provinces contribute to the expenses of her glory. 
 She asserted the right to tax them to be in an assembly where 
 they were not represented. The Colonies were of a different 
 opinion ; they quoted Magna Charta upon the Parliament, they 
 appealed to the British constitution, they finally drew the 
 sword and never sheathed it, till they wrung from England 
 such as I have described her, the recognition of that Inde- 
 pendence, the declaration of which has made yesterday a day 
 for ever memorable in the history of nations. Pardon me, if 
 I seem to linger upon the recollection of these mighty times. 
 Our fathers fought to establish a system of government under 
 which their posterity might flourish, to the latest ages, in the 
 enjoyment of all that makes men great, and life valuable. 
 With a steadiness and consistency commensurate with the 
 greatness of their object, with a wisdom equal to their courage, 
 with the same firmness and sobriety which had marked their 
 revolutionary career, they proceeded to construct their politi- 
 cal constitutions upon the principles for which they had fought. 
 
28 T. F. MAESHALIi. 
 
 In their nev work they did not permit a rage for novelty, or 
 an ambitious desire of distinguishing themselves by new and 
 brilliant theories of government, to put out the lights of expe- 
 rience, or to draw them from the contemplation of the past. 
 They surveyed their own situation carefully, and adopting the 
 principles best tested by the longest experience, modified and 
 shaped to suit their peculiar condition, they constructed a 
 system of polity under which they and their descendants have 
 advanced in prosperity with a rapidity hitherto unexampled 
 in the history of the human race. It remains to be tested 
 whether, along with their other legacies, they have bequeathed 
 to those descendants their spirit and their foresight. 
 
 The principle of representation and the distribution of the 
 powers of government into distinct departments or bodies of 
 magistracy differently constituted, were the great discoveries 
 in political science prior to the American Revolution. For 
 the strict principle that all political authority is delegated, 
 and for the invention of written constitutions, that science is in- 
 debted to the founders of our government. The utility of these 
 great principles have been so fully demonstrated by reason 
 and experience, that they have come to be considered as fun- 
 damental and indisputable. We may, therpfore, safely assume 
 them as true, and consider any new Doctor of Laws, who may 
 assail them, as having obtained his degrees surreptitiously. 
 
 Sir, not one or two, but all of these great fundamental 
 truths have been assailed by the present Executive adminis- 
 tration of the general government. Independently of the 
 general obligation which the people of this country are under, 
 to watch their public servants and observe any threatened 
 change in their constitution, there is a particular reason for 
 the narrowest scrutiny of every maxim and opinion that ema- 
 nates from the now President of the United States. That 
 officer has assumed that all his views and opinions, published 
 before his election, were ratified by the people in choosing him 
 as the Chief Magistrate, and that coming from that high 
 authority they are incorporated with and have become the 
 paramount law. 
 
FRANKFORT CONVENTIOIir. 29 
 
 The abuses and corruptions, the falsehoods and delusions 
 which have been practiced by the pai'ty now in power, have 
 met with so masterly an exposition in the address upon your 
 table, that I shall confine my remarks to those features in the 
 celebrated "Protest" of the President which have struck me 
 as the most remarkable and appalling. 
 
 The subject of that paper may be divided into two great 
 heads, under one of which the President labors to prove that 
 the late resolution of the Senate, in relation to the removal 
 of the public deposits is a violation of the Constitution, inas- 
 much as it assumes to pass a censure upon a coordinate 
 branch of the government, which is only responsible to the 
 people, or to the Congress, "by a regular impeachment and trial 
 in the mode prescribed by the fundamental laws. Under the 
 second, he disputes the fact charged in the resolution, and 
 claims the custody of the public money as a branch of the 
 executive authority. 
 
 To the argument of the President, against the right of the 
 Senate to pass such a resolution as the one which elicited the 
 " Protest," there are an hundred answers. It would seem 
 quite sufficient, so far as the "protest" is concerned, to quote 
 from the President and to assert for the Senate, the same right 
 to defend their immunities, and to protest by resolution against 
 what they may deem encroachments upon the legislative power 
 which he claims for himself. It is impossible to perceive any 
 ground for a distinction. But, sir, the whole reasoning of the 
 protest upon this subject is narrow and pedantic, it smells of 
 chicanery, and is based upon a falsehood. The Senate passed 
 no judicial sentence. They did not set as a court to try an 
 impeachment, but as a legislative body, deliberating upon the 
 most important of all the subjects of legislation, the purse of 
 the nation. The resolution had a legislative tendency, and 
 might terminate in an act of Congress replacing the public 
 money in the Bank of the United States. It was so intended. 
 But if it had not been ! Why, sir, the Congress is the great 
 inquest of the nation, the two houses are the two eyes of the 
 people. They are authorized " to provide for the common de- 
 
30 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 fense and general welfare." ,They, too, are sworn to support 
 the Constitution. The principle laid down in the protest would 
 annihilate every capacity and function of the Senate, save as 
 a court for the trial of impeachments. The President, it 
 seems, has been so much engaged in superintending the morals 
 of the people, and the press, and the Bank, that he has over- 
 looked those of the Post Office. The Senate have been rum- 
 maging there too, although it be an executive department for 
 which the President is only responsible to the people, or by 
 way of regular impeachment and trial. In so doing, accord- 
 ing to his notions, they have violated the plainest principles 
 of jurisprudence. They may come to set ia judgment upon 
 the Post master General, or, per possibility, upon the Presi- 
 dent himself, if he will abide by his own doctrines and assume 
 the sole responsibility for the monstrous defalcations of this 
 department. It will be exceedingly difficult, upon the facts 
 disclosed in Mr. Ewing's report, for any Senator to forbear 
 forming an opinion , upon the case. The report itself, and any 
 resolution growing out of it, touching the enormous abuses 
 which it unfolds, are unconstitutional assumptions of power. 
 In the I language of the President, " if he submit to such cen- 
 sures, the confidence of the people in his ability and virtue, 
 and the character and usefulness of his administration, will 
 soon be at an end." Not only the Senate itself, as a body, 
 but each individual member is bound to shut his eyes against 
 all information upon every subject connected with the depart- 
 ments, lest he might thus prejudge some executive officer. 
 The lower house is within the scope of the President's rea- ' 
 soning. That body can not pass a resolution touching the 
 conduct of any executive officer, unless it amount to an im- 
 peachment. What would be thought in England of the doc- 
 trine, that neither House of Parliament could debate or resolve 
 upon the conduct of the ministry ? Nothing, sir, can be more 
 absurd than to subject the Legislature of a great empire to 
 the rules of the common law, framed for a petit jury. 
 
 Although the party now in power have, for the most part 
 trodden in the worn and vulgar path of usurping factions that 
 
FEANKFORT CONVENTION. 31 
 
 have preceded them, yet in one particular they seem to have 
 improved upon their models. Usurpations have generally been 
 gradual. The minds of men have been familiarized to the 
 changes that have been eifected by steps so slow and gentle, 
 that they have found themselves in slavery without having 
 been shocked by any one act so violent as to awaken appre- 
 hension. Our gentry have reversed this policy. In the space 
 of five years they have achieved what hitherto it has taken 
 generations to accomplish. They have hurried usurpation 
 upon usurpation with a step so rapid, that the people have 
 not had time to view them in one position ere they have found 
 them in another ; they can not examine one measure, in all 
 its bearings and aspects, before they are called to the con- 
 sideration of an other still bolder, and thus have they been 
 hastened over a new road, without time to observe its marks 
 or its course, till by this last gigantic stride they are precipi- 
 tated into a despotism. Permit me to give one example of 
 this rapid change of position. In the paper read to the cabi- 
 net, which contains the President's reasons for the removal 
 of the public moneys from the Bank, we all remember that 
 he derives his right to remove them from the charter itself. 
 He there says that the custody of the public money would 
 seem more naturally to belong to the legislative department, 
 according to the genius of our institutions, but that Congress 
 have parted with it. Here is the argument, sir : The bank 
 charter is a contract bet'syeen the government and the stock- 
 holders, by which, for a valuable consideration, the government 
 has transferred to the bank the custody , of the revenue for a 
 limited time ; the only reservation to be found in the charter 
 is in that clause which relates to the Secretary of the Trea- 
 sury. The President proceeds to say, that by this means has 
 devolved upon him, through his subordinate officer, the sole 
 right to remove the deposits should a crisis arise making that 
 measure necessary. Congress have parted with the power and 
 imposed by the charter the duty and responsibility upon the 
 executive department. This was bad enough in all conscience. 
 
 But in this there was the distinct admission that, under the 
 3 
 
32 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 Constitution, the purse belonged to the legislature. Although 
 by an "oversight" (that, sir, is the President's phrase, he 
 avails himself of a mistake in the legislature to seize upon 
 this power) — although by an " oversight" they had parted 
 with this flower of all their privileges, still, linder that view 
 of the subject, it was but for a limited time. At the expira- 
 tion of the charter the grant would have terminated, the 
 custody of the funds would have reverted to the original pro- 
 prietors. But now, sir, what does the President say ? Permit 
 me to read the whole passage, and to call the attention of the 
 Convention and the people to what I consider as not the least 
 remarkable feature in this remarkable paper. " Public money," 
 says the protest, " is but a species of public property. It can 
 not be raised by taxation or customs, or brought into the trea- 
 sury in any other way except by law^; but whenever or how- 
 soever obtained, its custody always has been, and always must 
 be, unless the Constitution be changed, intrusted to the execu- 
 tive department. No oflficer can be created by Congress for 
 the purpose of taking charge of it, whose appointment would 
 not, by the Constitution, at once devolve on the President, and 
 who would not be responsible to him for the faithful perform- 
 ance of his duties." Connect that, sir, with the following: 
 " The act of 1816, establishing the Bank of the United States, 
 ■directed the deposits of public money to be made in that 
 bank and its branches, in places in which the said bank and 
 branches thereof may be established, ' unless the Secretary of 
 the Treasury should otherwise order and direct.' in which 
 ■event he was required to give his reasons to Congress. This 
 was hut a continuation of his pre-existing powers, as the head 
 ■of an executive department to direct where the deposits should 
 •be made, with the superadded obligation of giving his reasons 
 to Congress for making them elsewhere than in the Bank of 
 the United States and its branches. It is not to be considered 
 that tJiis provision in any degree altered the relation between 
 the Secretary of the Treasury and the President, as the 
 responsible head of the executive department, or released the 
 latter from his constitutional obligation to take care that the 
 
FEANKPORT CONVENTION. 33 
 
 laws be faithfully executed." Now it appears from this, that 
 although the charter had conferred no power upon the Secre- 
 taj-y of the Treasury, the President, as the natural guardian 
 and keeper of the public money, could have removed it from 
 the bank. Here is a change of, position, sir, with a vengeance. 
 The " genius of our institutions " seems to have changed since 
 the oracle last spoke. The National Legislature, of which, in 
 the passage of a law, the President is a component part, upon 
 mature deliberation, and after years of discussion, adopt a 
 grave and most important measure of finance, . they create a 
 corporation, appoint it their fiscal agent, and establish it as 
 the treasury of the nation. The Senate, the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, and the President, in his legislative capacity, ap- 
 prove the bill. A subsequent chief magistrate decides himself 
 to be the original and natural keeper of the public money : — 
 " No officer can be created by Congress for the purpose of 
 taking charge of it, whose appointment would not, by the 
 Constitution, at once devolve on the President, and who would 
 not be responsible to him for the faithful performance of his 
 duties" — " its custody always has been, and always must be, 
 unless the Constitution be changed, intrusted to the executive 
 department." Verily, verily, sir, this furnishes a new argu- 
 ment against the constitutionality of the Bank of the United 
 States. That institution was created by Congress for the pur- 
 pose of taking charge of the public money ; its appointment 
 did not devolve upon the President; it was not made respon- 
 sible to him for the faithful performance of its duties ; it was, 
 therefore, unconstitutional. 
 
 The infatuated followers of the President — those who would 
 cling to his skirts till he ascend the imperial throne — still 
 contend that he has not combined, that he does not seek to 
 combine, the purse with the sword. They say that the Pro- 
 test does not dispute the sole right of the legislature to raise 
 money and to appropriate it — that the President only claims 
 the custody of it when raised, and until appropriated. Sir, 
 what is the meaning of that fundamental maxim in all free 
 governments, that the purse and the sword should be in dif- 
 
34 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 ferent hands ? Is it a mere theoretical abstraction to round off 
 and preserve the symmetry of a schoolman's system, or is it 
 a great practical truth, essential to the actual enjoyment of 
 liberty, and having its foundations laid deep in the nature of 
 man ? It has been thought that whatever accumulation of 
 other powers there might be in the hands of a monarch, that 
 they were harmless so long as the sole and undivided control 
 of the money was possessed by a legislature independent on 
 the crown and representing the nation ; and why ? Simply 
 because without money no one project of ambition can be car- 
 ried into elFect, either by force or corruption. You may give 
 to the Executive the power of making war, of raising fleets 
 and armies, of appointing ambassadors, of making treaties 
 without the concurrence of either branch of the legislature; 
 but keep from him the purse ; place in other hands the means 
 by which fleets and armies are to be sustained, ambassadors 
 paid, and treaties carried into efiect; and he can do nothing 
 without the consent of that power. This, sir, is the true and 
 only efiectual safeguard against executive encroachments. 
 With this the Commons of England have reigned in a long 
 line of hereditary kings. With this, society is secure beyond 
 the possibility of oppression, unless there take place a corrupt 
 union between the executive and legislative departments. 
 Against that evil our Constitution has aimed to provide by 
 the different modes in which the difierent bodies of magistracy 
 are appointed. Now, sir, the true power of the pnrse does 
 not consist altogether either in raising money by taxes and 
 loans, or even in appropriating it by law, but in having the 
 actual custody of it when raised, and the full means of secur- 
 ing its disbursement according to appropriation. Suppose, 
 sir, that you had deposited the annual revenue of your estate 
 in a place selected by yourself as one of perfect safety, one 
 which you had tried long and thoroughly, one which you had 
 constructed for the purpose, one over which you exercised a 
 supervision, into which you could enter for the" purpose of 
 examining and counting your money whenever you chose, and 
 a neighbor of yours were to transfer the money into his 
 
FRANKFORT CONVENTION. 35 
 
 Breeches pocket, or distribute it for safe keeping among a 
 score of friends of his over whom you had no control, and in 
 whom you had no confidence, and were to inform you, that 
 although he could raise no money himself, he was the natural 
 guardian, and entitkd to the custody of whatever you raised 
 — is there a man in the world mad enough to say, under these 
 circumstances, that you had the control of your own purse? 
 And yet, this is a parallel case, precisely parallel. Sir, 
 under the doctrines of the protest^ the purse is gone from the 
 legislature. 
 
 The President can not find the grant of the power which 
 he claims, in the Constitution. Since he has discarded the 
 authority derived to the Secretary of the Treasury from the 
 charter (an authority by far too w«ll qualified and too strictly 
 limited for his purpose, since it reserves the right of legisla- 
 tive revision), he runs up to original executive powers as an 
 inexhaustible fountain upon which he can draw ad libitum. 
 Sir, I protest against this. I protest against it as an Ameri- 
 can citizen; an humble and obscure one, I grant, but still an 
 American citizen, and a descendant of one of those Whigs 
 who poured out their blood like water to secure to their pos- 
 terity the precious advantage of a written constitution, above 
 and beyond which there is no political power in this country. 
 Sir, the President is heaving at the very foundations of our 
 system — ^he would strike the key-stone from out the beautiful 
 arch of American liberty. He claims to be the direct repre- 
 sentative of the American people, and to be nearer the legiti- 
 mate source of power than the Senate. The mode of his 
 election places him upon no higher ground than any other 
 department of the government. He derives from that elec- 
 tion no other right than to exercise the functions assigned to 
 a President of the United States by the Constitution. Those 
 who framed that instrument foresaw that the chief of a domi- 
 nant faction might become in this country (as he has in most 
 others claiming to be republics) the most execrable of all 
 tyrants. They, therefore, contrived various bodies of magis- 
 tracy, some nearer, some more remote, from the people, and 
 
36 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 they contrived them as a curb upon the executive and upon 
 each other. Against this curb the President is straining hard. 
 God grant that he may not snap it. 
 
 But to return to the custody of the public money. If we 
 look into the Constitution of the legislative department, we 
 will find, among others, the following enumerated powers : — 
 " The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, du- 
 ties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for 
 the common defense and general welfare of the United States. 
 To borrow money on the credit of the United States." (This 
 last would seem to be an original executive power to be exer- 
 cised concurrently by the President through the Post OflSce 
 Department.) " To make all laws which shall be necessary 
 and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, 
 and all the other powers vested by this Constitution in the 
 government of the United States, or in any department or 
 officer thereof." And lastly : "No money shall be drawn from 
 the treasury but in consequence of appropriations made by 
 law." Now I ask if a constitution of government could place 
 the money power more fully in the hands of the legislature ? 
 They can not only lay taxes, but collect them — ^they can bor- 
 row money — no money shall be taken from the treasury but 
 in consequence of appropriations made by law. And where, 
 sir, is the treasury? The place where the public money is 
 deposited and kept, most unquestionably. Has the Constitu- 
 tion fixed that place ? It has not. Is not such a place neces- 
 sary in the collection of the revenue and the administration 
 of the finances ? Beyond a doubt it is. To whom has the 
 power of collecting the revenue been assigned ? To Congress. 
 To whom has the power of passing laws, necessary and proper 
 to the execution of specified powers, been assigned ? To Con- 
 gress : the Constitution, then, has not established a treasury. 
 The establishment of one is essential to the execution of 
 powers vested in the Congress. To Congress alone has been 
 granted the power of making all laws necessary and proper 
 for carrying into execution not only, sir, their own enumerated 
 powers, but all others vested by the Constitution in the gov- 
 
FEANKFOET CONVENTION. 37 
 
 ernment of the United States, or in any department or officer 
 thereof. Sir, the President has thrown us upon the proof of 
 first principles and self-evident truths. He has driven ns by 
 his assertions, aye, and his actions too, to the necessity of 
 showing that the Coiistitution of the United States has sepa- 
 rated the purse from the sword. 
 
 When Ave hear the President gravely assert, that no depart-" 
 ment of the government can inquire into or pass a censure 
 upon the conduct of the Executive without a violation of the 
 Constitution, but that he is bound by his oath of office to pro- 
 tect and preserve the immunities of his department, and to 
 protest and resolve, as loudly as he may choose, against legis- 
 lative encroachments — that precedents in favor of the execu- 
 tive power, where its action alone is concerned, are binding 
 and not to be disputed, as in th^e case of removals from office 
 — but that precedents in favor of the legislative power are not 
 at all conclusive upon the President, as in the case of the 
 constitutionality of the Bank of the United States, we are 
 forcibly reminded of the definition given of the royal prerog- 
 ative in the English law. It is said to be " that special pre- 
 eminence which the king hath over and above all other 
 persons, and out of the ordinary course of the common law, 
 in right of his royal dignity." 
 
 It is evident, indeed, from the 'whole tenor of the paper, 
 that the President considers himself as invested with authority 
 to amend, to reform, to remodel. He stands somewhat in the 
 attitude of Solon, Lycurgus, or Numa. He claims to be cen- 
 sor of the press, guardian of the morals of the people and of 
 the purity of elections. He speaks of his "fixed determina- 
 tion to return to the people unimpaired the sacred trust they 
 have confided to his charge, to heal the wounds of the Con- 
 stitution and preserve it from further violation." Who, sir, has 
 inflicted wounds upon the Constitution ? Who has conferred 
 upon Andrew Jackson the power to reform it? Who named 
 him to the censorship? Had our State fallen into some mor- 
 tal distemper? Was our Constitution rotten at the core? 
 Was it necessary to sU'spend the action of our whole system, 
 
38 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 to, call iji a dictator and arm him with plenary powers? And, 
 sir, was this the man? 
 
 Mr. President, when we read the professions of puritanical 
 regard for the institutions of this country, with which the pro- 
 test abounds — when we come to such passages as this, for 
 instance, " It is my fixed determination to persuade my coun- 
 trymen, so far as I may, that it is not in a splendid govern- 
 ment, supported by powerful monopolies and aristocratical 
 establishments, that they will find happiness, or their liberties 
 protection; but in a plain system, void of pomp, protecting all 
 and granting favors to none, dispensing its favors like the dews 
 of heaven, etc." — I say, sir, when we read such passages as 
 this, and remember that the present Postmaster General was 
 put into office for the purpose of visiting political opponents 
 with executive vengeance ; that under his administration the 
 accumulations of his predecessor have been squandered; that 
 he has borrowed enormous sums without warrant of law ; that 
 this fact has been kept from the knowledge of the Congress ; 
 that false reports have been made from the department for 
 the purpose of hoodwinking the legislature, and deceiving the 
 nation ; that by means of extra allowances a monopoly of the 
 contracts with that department has been secured to political 
 favorites, in fraud of the revenue and the laws — I say, sir, _ 
 when we remember these things, and are told of a system pro- 
 tecting all, and granting favors to none, it requires extraordi- 
 nary patience to restrain one's self within the bounds of 
 moderate expression. 
 
 Sir, to what are we tending? To what have we come? 
 Five years ago such a declaration as we have been consider- 
 ing, from a President of the United States, would of itself 
 have convulsed the world with laughter. If accompanied by 
 any overt act to enforce the claims of power there asserted, 
 an instant impeachment and trial would have been the conse- 
 quence. What would the people of the United States have 
 said ? What would the friends and followers of General Jack- 
 son have said, had the younger Adams put forth such a 
 manifesto? If the next five years witness as great a change, 
 
FRANKFORT CONVENTION. 39 
 
 " we shall see the diadem sparkling on the President's brow, 
 the imperial purple flowing in his train ! We shall learn to 
 tremble at the ferocious visages of murdering Janizaries." 
 We have already had a foretaste of the " seraglio." We have 
 lived to see an American Cabinet dissolved, a great measure 
 of state to turn upon the resentments and intrigues of a 
 " minion and his mistress." 
 
 Sir, let us not disguise the truth ; let us proclaim it in trum- 
 pet tones to our own State, at least. If the principles of the 
 President's protest be acquiesced in — nay, if the seal of popu- 
 lar reprobation be not stamped upon all and sundry the claims 
 of power contained in that portentous paper, then is the Con- 
 stitution of the United States at an end, and the most remark- 
 able revolution of which there is any record, will have been 
 consummated. Within less than a half century from its foun- 
 dation, without any pressure from abroad or any known inter- 
 nal disorder, the American republic will have ceased to be, 
 and a despotism the most extensive, the most inexplicable, 
 will have quietly assumed its place without noise, confusion, 
 or bloodshed. Can these things be? They violate the order 
 of nature ; they contradict all experience. Other republics 
 have flourished for ages, but they seemed not to rest upon 
 foundations as deep and solid as ours. They have perished, 
 but the seeds of decay are discernible in their original con- 
 stitution, and can be traced, growing and ripening throughout 
 their history, down to the very crisis of their fate. They have 
 perished from the very necessity of their being; but never, 
 never, sir, did "liberty's great soul depart" from any system 
 into which it had once been infused without a struggle. Rome 
 fell. From "her most high and palmy state" of glory and 
 of power, she bowed her stubborn neck to the yoke of a per- 
 petual dictator. That dictator (mark it well) was a popular 
 idol. He commenced his career of ambition as the champion 
 of popular rights. He came to pull down the proud, the aris- 
 tocratic, the powerful. He was the enemy of the rich. He 
 proposed and pressed the gratuitous distribution of the public 
 lands among the poorer class of citizens. He ultimately di- 
 
40 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 vided them, however, -when he came to be the sole guardian 
 of the public property, among his officers and soldiers, as the 
 spoils of victory. Sir, I am describing Caesar. I am giving 
 a faithful recital of events long since passed. He waged an 
 inexpiable war against a refractory senate — seized upon the 
 public treasure — Combined the influence of the purse with the 
 power of the sword — became, in effect, consul, tribune, senate, 
 concentrated in his single hand all the powers of the Consti- 
 tution, " and bestrode the narrow world like a Colossus." In 
 the possession of absolute power, he still retained the forms 
 of the old republic and feared> to take the name of king. 
 Under the title of Imperator, he lorded it over his country 
 and mankind. That, sir, was a military title — when rendered 
 literally it means the general. We have the word, we have 
 the thing, and the fate of Rome has made that word and that 
 thing ominous to republics. Rome fell, but not before a pa- 
 per manifesto — not upon a simple summons from the consul 
 elect. The despot came, but not surrounded with scullions 
 and kitchen knights and starveling editors. He came in all 
 the " pride and pomp and circumstance of glorious war." He 
 came with the Gallic legions at his back. He prostrated his 
 country, but he prostrated her by force. That country scorned 
 to yield to the ungrateful citizen upon whom she had heaped 
 honors and offices and coimmand — -she summoned around her 
 all that remained of courage and virtue and patriotism. She 
 encountered the usurper, and fell where she had risen, O'n the 
 field of battle, and bathed in blood. She found some conso- 
 lation, too, in the character of her conqueror. His noble cle- 
 mency, his magnanimous forgiveness of personal wrong and 
 hostility to himself, made him at least a generous master. 
 Julius Caesar was the most accomplished man of his age ; 
 inferior to none in eloquence — superior to all in the cabi- 
 net, and in the field. His were the " statesman's, soldier's, 
 scholar's eye, tongue, sword," — barring his ambition, he 
 would have been the ornament of his country and his kind. 
 
 France, too, in our own times, submitted to a monarch and 
 a master j but France was torn to pieces by the rage of do- 
 
FEANKFORT CONVENTION. 41* 
 
 mestic factions. In the tremendous throes of her revolution, 
 in the hour of her travail, and her agony, the neighboring 
 nations combining, rushed upon her and strangled young free- 
 dom in its birth. To save herself from dismemberment and 
 conquest, she sought for union and safety under the energetic 
 government of a single ruler. That ruler was Napoleon, and 
 never did the rod of empire fall into hands better fitted to 
 wield it. France bore a terrible front to her enemies, and 
 found glory at least, if not liberty, under his iron sway. 
 France and Rome could plead their necessities ; but for us, 
 for us, what apology shall history make to posterity for our 
 abandonment of the rights of mankind ? We were at peace 
 with all the world — at home no sedition,* no disturbance — our 
 population expanding with an increase unexampled, and em- 
 ployment and the means of subsistence increasing still faster 
 — every class of our citizens happy — every department of in- 
 dustry prosperous — the wages of labor, the profits of capital, 
 the rent of land, all indicating the happiest state of human 
 society. A moneyed institution, one of the finest creations of 
 financial genius, the foundation of which was an era in com- 
 merce, had attracted the streams of foreign capital into the 
 great reservoir of American enterprise — had reformed the 
 currency, equalized the exchanges, and placed the domestic 
 trade of the States, and the fiscal operations of the govern- 
 ment, upon a footing never before known in an empire so 
 extensive, and utterly impossible between separate and inde- 
 pendent communities. American credit was coextensive with 
 the fame of the republic, and was supposed to rest upon foun- 
 dations as durable as the government, as lasting as liberty. 
 The vessel of state rode majestically over the smooth and 
 prosperous ocean that swelled under her in undulations as 
 gentle as the breathings of an infant's slumber. There was 
 no difiiculty in the navigation, no storm, no cloud, "not a 
 frown upon the atmosphere." The course of the ship lay 
 straight before her, propitious gales swelled her canvas and 
 fanned her decks. Such was her headway, and so smooth the 
 sea, that she could for a long time have maintained her career 
 
42 T. F. MAESHAIiL. 
 
 without a helmsman — the pilot might have slept without dan- 
 ger. Such, sir, was our condition. The very excess of pros- 
 perity begat discontent. To continue the figure, a cry is raised 
 about the expenses of those engaged in working the ship — a 
 silly and delusive cry of retrenchment and reform on board — 
 a new hand is called to the rudder — the veterans who had 
 worked thdt gallant vessel through many an hour of storm 
 and trial are thrown aside as unfit to hand a sail — " land lub- 
 bers," — men who had never heard the surges of the sea, who 
 knew nothing either of line or compass, are set to work her ; 
 and now, sir,, under the steerage of folly " sublimed into mad- 
 ness," she is driven, wantonly driven upon a rock that is to 
 shiver her goodly frame to pieces. I have said, sir, that this 
 termination of the American Constitution is out of the har- 
 mony of things, and contrary to all the analogies of history. 
 Depend upon it the matter ends not so. The desperate fac- 
 tion which, under cover of the popularity of a favorite chief, 
 has prostrated our policy, spread venality and corruption 
 through every department which they could control — whose 
 reign of terror has been one unbroken series of plunder and 
 usurpations, may destroy the Federal Constitution possibly — 
 they may condense, consolidate into one concrete mass, and 
 place in a single hand all the political powers which that in- 
 strument has so wisely separated and distributed among the 
 various organs of the government. But they will never reign 
 over this continent — never, sir. That greatest of all evils has 
 been provided against. There are many wheels in our system. 
 " B. pluribus unum" — it is one State composed of many States. 
 It is not a consolidated empire, but a confederation of repub- 
 lics united upon a national principle — knit together with such 
 exquisite skill as to present one uniform and consistent ap- 
 pearance ; the members still retain their separate organization. 
 The machine may be taken to pieces and the parts remain 
 entire. Sir, each rib of that ship of which I spoke, as hold- 
 ing her course at sea so gallantly, is itself a vessel. The 
 cunning architects who constructed her have compounded a 
 whole fleet of frigates into one tremendous man-of-war. If 
 
FEANKFORT CONVENTION. 43 
 
 there be among the crew a band of pirates wlio are resolved 
 to plunder the stores and strand the vessel, dream not, sir, 
 let them not dream that those whose lives, fortunes, liberties 
 and honor are freighted there, will suffer unresistingly. Sooner 
 will they touch the secret springs and separate that stately 
 ship into its original parts. They will do so without a strug- 
 gle, if possible ; if not— if they must founder at sea, they will 
 "incarnadine the deep." 
 
 "The sun that sees their failing day, 
 Will mark their sabers' deadly sway, 
 And set that night in 'blood." 
 
 Let no man understand me either as a nullifier or revolu- 
 tionist. I am a National republican of the Webster school. 
 Yet, sir, that great political philosopher, to whom I hold my- 
 self more indebted for the very little that I know, than to any 
 living teacher, never tau^it the doctrine of passive obedience. 
 He well knows that the consolidation of all the powers granted 
 by the Federal Constitution, in a single hand, is a union which 
 he never taught. He knows that it is one of the dangers to 
 which our system is liable, that it is now impending ; and, sir, 
 he is resisting it with all the powers of his gigantic genius. 
 A despotism extending over this continent would be the most 
 withering, the most hopeless, the most incurable of any un- 
 der which the human race has ever groaned. There are no 
 northern barbarians to sweep over it as they did over the 
 despotism established in Europe by the Romans, purging and 
 purifying the political atmosphere, and establishing a new 
 order of things; no Tartar tribes to descend upon us as they 
 do periodically upon the Asiatic empires, sweeping away mas- 
 ter and slave in one common wreck. Here, sir, the human 
 intellect would languish and droop in the stagnation of eternal 
 servitude. Sir, I consider the local governments as an essen- 
 tial part of our system. I consider them as the ultimate 
 conservative principle, and as a mean of preserving liberty, 
 for a time at least, even though the central power or general 
 government should terminate in a despotism. This is, indeedj 
 
44 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 the distinguishing advantage of our system. A revolution in 
 America would not leave the people broken into a disconnected 
 multitude without law or government, and liable to any future 
 forms into which they might be thrown by accident or com- 
 pressed by force. The choice for them whenever the fearful 
 crisis shall come, will not be between anarchy and slavery. 
 Be these matters as they may, while the members retain their 
 separate organizations, their political capacities and functions, 
 they will never submit to tyranny in the head. A confede- 
 ration of republics, with a despot at the head of the whole, is 
 a political monster never yet exhibited to the world. But I 
 will not press the subject farther. All good patriots must 
 consider disunion as an evil second only to servitude. 
 
 Sir, I have been, I am a devout believer in the reason of 
 mankind. The people at large can certainly have no interest 
 in the overthrow of property, liberty, and law. They are the 
 country. It was to preserve them in safety, freedom and hap- 
 piness, that this government was instituted. The American 
 people are a generous and a grateful, but they are a sober- 
 minded and a sensible people. They have trusted deeply 
 where they believed they had grounds to trust. Their confi- 
 dence has been as deeply abused. Look abroad, sir ; the 
 frown is gathering on a nation's brow. The thunder cloud is 
 slowly charging, which is to burst upon the heads of those 
 who have deceived, and would have manacled a free people, 
 in a storm of wrath, indignation and reproach, in comparison 
 with which the resolution of the Senate was praise, the roar 
 of artillery at New Orleans but the whisperings of infancy. 
 The President vaunts him of the dangers he has encountered 
 — let him beware of this. The ocean, " when its yeasty war 
 of waves is waging, is not more terrific." His followers de- 
 light to call him the " old Roman." Between whom of all 
 that bore that celebrated name and their idol, they may have 
 detected a resemblance, I know not. I recollect one old Ro- 
 man, however, whose fate might be a beacon. There lived in 
 an early and pure age of that republic, a gallant soldier; 
 there were then many such. When the Gauls had routed the 
 
FBANKFOET CONVENTION. 45 
 
 armies and burned the city of the Romans, and all was lost, 
 save the capitol, this man was placed to guard the rock on 
 which it stood. The barbarians came on and found his breast 
 a barrier which they could not pass. With his single arm he 
 made good the defense, and saved the broken remnant of his 
 nation. This man afterward grew presumptuous ; he aspired 
 to the sovereignty, and aimed to destroy the Constitution of 
 his country. Has the President, in his late learned researches, 
 since his academic honors have been showered upon him, met 
 with the story of Manlius and the Tarpeian rock ? It is an old 
 tale, but not without its moral. That was before the age of 
 the divine Augustus — the god Tiberius had not yet descended 
 upon earth — men were not then worshiped. Patriotism was 
 so common a virtue, that the defense of one's country was 
 considered but as the discharge of an ordinary duty, and con- 
 ferred no peculiar distinction. 
 
 Mr. President, there are in the bosom of every society, bad 
 men and weak men enough to ruin it if they be thrown into 
 power. Providence, however, which is always just to men, 
 and puts before them good and evil, has likewise infused into 
 every community wisdom and virtue to save. Never, sir, did 
 any country produce a greater race of men than are to be 
 found at this instant in the United States. Never in any 
 Senate — no, not even in that which an admiring Gaul mistook 
 for a council of the gods — was there congregated a body of 
 men more eminent for wisdom, eloquence and heroic con- 
 stancy, than in that which has grappled in desperate conflict 
 with the enraged and reckless head of the executive depart- 
 ment. The actors in that scene — " than which no muse of 
 fire that ever ascended the highest heaven of invention, can 
 conceive of aught more swelling and sublime" — the actors in 
 that august scene are fully up to the crisis of the drama. 
 Sir, in that constellation of genius that blazes there, there 
 looms a star of the first magnitude, " its beams unshorn," its 
 brightness undiminished by the proximity of those luminous 
 bodies with which it is now surrounded. It seems rather to 
 have swelled in size and splendor, and still maintains its place 
 
46 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 at the head of the group, flashing its broad and prophetic 
 light into the far depths of distance. That star arose in the 
 West — it sprang from our own horizon — it has been some 
 times mistaken for a meteor, so brilliant, so rapid was its 
 course — it has proven to be no evanescent exhalation — through 
 cloud, and mist, and vapor, it has struggled on till now " it 
 culminates in the meridian" among the fixed and eternal lights 
 of the skies. Sir, we are forbidden to call nam«8 on this 
 floor — it has been deemed invidious to designate individuals. 
 I will not name that star — I need not — I see 'tis written in 
 its own bright beams upon the heart of every Whig who 
 hears me. 
 
THE JUDICIARY. 47 
 
 REPOET ON THE JUCICIARY, 
 
 Macle to the Kentucky Legislature, on the 22ti of Deceirfher, 1836. 
 
 The Governor of Kentucky, in his Message to the State Legislature, during 
 its session of 1-836 — 37, called attention to the Judiciary. The subject 
 was referred to a committee. On the 22d of December, Mr. Marshall, 
 as Chairman of the committee, made the following report. It displays 
 searching investigation, and the closest reasoning. It is an able and 
 vigorous defense of an independent Judiciary, and a correct review o^ 
 then, existent defects in that department of State polity ; — 
 
 The committee have carefully considered the views taken 
 by the Executive in relation to the Judiciary. The earnest- 
 ness with which the message presses this subject upon the 
 attention of the Legislature, the recurrence to it at the close 
 of that communication, the evidently lingering anxiety with 
 which he finally quits it, mark the deep interest which the 
 Governor has taken in the subject, and are fully justified in 
 the judgment of the committee by its paramount importance. 
 There is nothing which will engage our deliberations, upon 
 the wise and liberal adjustment of which, depend more 
 eminently the credit and honor of the State, the duration 
 of the most valuable principles in our present constitution, 
 and the liberty, prosperity, and security of the people. It is 
 believed that there is scarcely a dissenting voice in, or out of 
 the Legislature as to the propriety of increasing the compen- 
 sation of the judges. The diificulty lies in settling the pre- 
 cise point to which the salaries should be raised. The 
 committee have thought that this was not altogether arbitrary 
 or capricious, but that there exists some principle, which, 
 when applied to known and existing facts, will guide us to 
 some rationally certain conclusion. In searching for a rule, 
 they have contemplated steadily, in the first place, the public 
 
48 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 end to be attained. That end is nothing less than a pure, 
 enlightened, and steady administration of justice. The obser- 
 vations of the Governor upon this head, at once profound and 
 practical, comprehensive and brief, have left little for the 
 reasoning or illustration of the committee. In consideration, 
 however, of the incalculable importance of the matter referred 
 to them, they ask the indulgence of the house while they 
 attempt some additional reflections. 
 
 Upon the administration of justice among men, depend the 
 security of property, and the enjoyment of liberty. It is 
 the parent of industry by securing its fruits, and as such, is 
 the fountain of revenue and improvement, of civilization, and 
 the arts. In the early stages of society, the executive and 
 judicial authority are generally found united in the same 
 person. The wisest, the bravest, and the strongest man, 
 leads the tribe in war, and settles such disputes as may arise 
 among the members of a simple community in peace. Law 
 is then administered according to the principles of natural 
 equity, and at the discretion of the judge. In an advanced 
 state of society, when the relations of men are infinitely 
 multiplied, that which was so simple in its commencement, be- 
 comes the most extensive and complicated of human sciences, 
 embracing every pursuit of man, and every variety of pro- 
 perty. The knowledge of it becomes a distinct profession, 
 and requires half a life to attain. The English system of 
 jurisprudence is, perhaps, the most perfect in the world, and 
 the best adapted to a free and commercial people. It is the 
 most perfect, because of the manner in which it has been 
 formed. It is the result, the slow and cautious result, of the 
 joint wisdom of legislators, and judges, through a series of 
 ages, gradually shaping itself, to suit the changes of society 
 dn its long march from barbarisn; to the extreme of commer- 
 cial refinement. No efifort of abstract philosophy can hope 
 to equal a system for the government of men, which has been 
 formed by the experience of men. To master such a system 
 thoroughly, is to have a knowledge of all the relations of 
 tuman life, and to understand all the business of society. 
 
The judiciary. 49 
 
 But this knowledge is not all that is necessary to complete 
 the character or the qualifications of that most important of 
 political functionaries, a great judge. Upon him depend the 
 title to property, the inviolability of contracts, the security 
 of the earnings of labor. He can pass sentence of death, of 
 ituprisonment, of infamy. In his hands are placed the life, 
 the liberty, the honor of the citizen. The powers connected 
 with the judicial office, are tremendous; but they spring out 
 of the nature and necessities of human society, and must be 
 deposited somewhere. 
 
 To the proper discharge of these duties, learning is neces- 
 sary; learning, the fruit of long and patient inquiry, and 
 ripened and matured by the mellowing touch of age and 
 experience. But learning is not all; the judge must be im- 
 partial. He must be the mouth-piece and organ, merely of 
 the law. At his bar all must be strangers. Acting for the 
 government, he must not stand in awe of power ; his decisions 
 bearing upon the rights of individuals, he must not listen to 
 the gentler whispers of afifection; settling vast questions of 
 property, he must be above the temptations of want. Under- 
 standing the business and the interests of every class, craft 
 and profession, the perfection of his office requires that he 
 should be connected with none. Justice should be his only 
 trade ; his time, his talents, and his heart, should be his 
 country's, and his country's alone. Without learning, the 
 best intentioned judge may be misled by the art and subtlety 
 of the bar; without integrity, the most learned will pervert 
 the rules framed for the protection of the weak and the un- 
 wary, into the sharpened instruments of fraud and oppression. 
 In the purity and ability of the bench, the poor and the 
 weak have by far the deepest interest; the wealthy and the 
 powerful can speculate upon its corruptions. The salaries 
 which go to sustain its independence are levied upon the 
 rich, for the protection of the indigent; they are the armor 
 taken from the mighty, to shield the impotent. 
 
 Human, wisdom has not devised, nor philosophy taught,, 
 nor experience tested, any check upon power wherever it 
 
50 T. p. MAESHALL. 
 
 may be deposited, any preservative to a limited constitution, 
 or any safeguard to personal liberty and the rights of indi- 
 viduals, comparable to this English invention of an indepen- 
 dent judiciary. 
 
 Antiquity tried all forms of polity, simple and mixed. 
 They threw off the kingly government to obtain liberty; they 
 again fled with terror from the popular, and sought refuge 
 from the bloody fury of proscribing faction in the arms of 
 despotism. Their philosophers taught indeed, that liberty 
 could only be found in a government of fixed laws, but they 
 had discovered no means of controlling the will of men and 
 parties. The history of the ancient democracies, therefore, 
 are brief and bloody, and present, throughout, the picture of 
 the fierce struggles and absolute power of alternate factions, 
 during which the lives, persons, and property of the minority 
 were without protection. Their annals are but the recital of 
 murder and confiscation. The mixed constitution of England, 
 the slow birth of the throes and labor of centuries, springing 
 out of the conflicts between the barons and the king, to 
 which it owes the introduction of the popular principle, -boasts 
 of the balanced strength, and security, it derives from the 
 partition of political power among the three orders of the 
 State. The history of England sliows, however, that the 
 king, lords, and Commons, are three jarring and eternally 
 contending parties, each aiming at absolute power, and each 
 enjoying it at one period or other of their history. Until the 
 English judiciary became independent, deriving their commis- 
 sions from one branch of the government, and their salaries 
 from the other, and holding their ofiices at the pleasure of 
 neither, English liberty had no existence. From the Ameri- 
 can constitutions we have discarded entirely and for ever the 
 hereditary principle. But though purely and essentially 
 popular in its origin, we have placed limitations upon the 
 sovereign power; we have incorporated certain permanent and 
 eternal principles in written constitutions, and erected an 
 independent judiciary, as the depository and interpreter, the 
 guardian and the priest, of these oracles of freedom. It is 
 
THE JUDICIAEY. 51 
 
 in these circumstances, mainly, that we diflfer fVom the Re- 
 publics of antiquity. As a nation, we are great, and free, and 
 prosperous, and happy, and united. Liberty and industry, 
 the twin and giant offspring of our political Union, are the 
 mighty agents which are at work, hand in hand, to achieve 
 for us still further greatness, and deeper glory, than we have 
 as yet enjoyed. 
 
 But are we exposed to no dangers? Has faction never 
 exhibited among us its ancient qualities? Have we not seen 
 party in its dominant strength, seeking to overthrow all bar- 
 riers, and grasping with its wonted rapacity at boundless and 
 uncontrollable authority? And have we not seen our written 
 constitutions, frail and paper checks though they seem, con- 
 verted into ramparts of adamant, and hurling back into their 
 proper channel the boiling wtives of faction, even as the rock 
 repels the raging sea? ' 
 
 The committee feel that they have pressed this view of the 
 subject far enough, the obvious truth and importance of the 
 principles stalted with such force and terseness in the message, 
 and which are here only extended, render perhaps all remark 
 from the committee superfluous. The peculiar circumstances 
 of the country must plead their vindication. There seems to 
 be a growing discontent with the present constitution, a spirit 
 of revolution, a restless desire of change. To break up the 
 organic laws and throw society back upon its original elements 
 is always a hazardous operation; to do so from the mere love 
 of experiment is not a proof of wisdom, and is rarely ever 
 productive of good. In searching for the causes of this dis- 
 content, among the most prominent seems to be a dissatisfac- 
 tion with the judicial system. The incapacity of some judges, 
 the frequent fluctuations on the bench and changes among 
 those best calculated for the office, are good grounds of pop- 
 ular discontent. The evil itself, the cause and the remedy, 
 are indicated with equal clearness by the executive. The 
 fault is not in the appointing power. Some of those who seek 
 to change the constitution expect a remedy in an elective 
 judiciary. Without going farther into that subject, the com- 
 
52 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 mittee will barely remark, that the evils of an unsteady rule 
 of property, resulting from frequent changes on the bench, so 
 happily stated and illustrated in the message, -would be 
 increased greatly by this mode. And as to the capacity of 
 the judges, men of the first character and abilities in the 
 profession would be as little inclined to undertake the public 
 business for insufiBcient salaries, and for a limited time, at 
 the call of the people, as of the executive and senate. The 
 effect of an electioneering court has been anticipated in the 
 previous part of this report. The importance of the object is 
 taken for granted, a pure, enlightened and steady administra- 
 tion of justice. To effect it, the State must be enabled to 
 command to its service the highest qualities ■which the coun- 
 try affords. Deep learning, strong talents, and spotless in- 
 tegrity, are articles of great value in society, the demand for 
 ■which is rarely belo'w the supply. The State is by no means 
 ■without competition in the market; indeed, heretofore, she 
 can scarcely be considered as a rival bidder at all. If she 
 has secured to her use some portion of these costly moral 
 Commodities, it is because, connected ■with them, is for the 
 most part found an enlarged benevolence and a love of honor, 
 ■which leads the loftiest minds to the service of their country 
 and mankind, at the sacrifice of private interest. The evident 
 rule by -which she can command a regular and certain supply, 
 is the measure of reward ■which the highest abilities in that 
 profession from ■which the judges must be taken, can com- 
 mand from society. The State price may be some thing beloiy 
 this, though it should approximate it. The permanence and 
 certainty of the salary, the honor connected -with the bench, 
 and the more agreeable character of the employment -will 
 compensate for some diminution in the pecuniary reward. In 
 treating this subject, the executive has called our attention to 
 the change which has taken place in the value of money 
 since the present salaries were fixed by law. He estimates 
 the value of money, relatively to other commodities at that 
 time, as double what it is now, so that the judges, though 
 nominally they receive the same, in reality are upon half pay. 
 
THE JUDICIARY. 53 
 
 They are enabled to command for their services but half the 
 necessaries and conveniences of life which they formerly 
 ■were. As to accumulation, or laying up any thing for their 
 families, that has always been out of the question. If his 
 excellency be right in his estimate, and the committee 
 believe that he is, the State must double the salaries, in order 
 to preserve the spirit of her contract with the judges. If she 
 do not, she has in fact reduced 50 per cent, the pittance 
 which she promised by statute. The Governor thinks, and 
 the committee think with him, that the salaries increased 
 upon this principle will be below, the earnings of industrious 
 mediocrity in the profession. In comparing our judicial 
 salaries with those of other countries, where the judiciary is 
 regarded as the main stay of a liinited constitution, the com- 
 mittee pass by the judges of England. The great difference 
 in the population, wealth and resources of that country, and 
 in the genius of her institutions, render her example inappli- 
 cable. It shows, however, that the people of that country 
 aimed to make their judges really independent, by placing 
 them as far beyond the temptations of want, as they are 
 exempt from the control of power. The land of Hale, and 
 Bacon, and Mansfield, has made the honors of the bench the 
 richest prize in the State ; she has secured thereby to the 
 service of justice, and for the improvement of the law, all 
 that was great in science, dignified in learning, and elevated 
 in virtue. Sh* has reared thereby a system of jurisprudence 
 which is the admiration of the world; a system so free as to 
 be adopteid by republics; a system in which individual rights 
 are defined with such admirable precision, and protected by 
 remedies so ample, as to preserve in a great degree unimpaired 
 the personal liberty of the subject, when the political consti- 
 tution tended most to despotism, and private property sacred 
 amid the rage of popular revolution. Passing by England 
 then, the committee beg leave to refer the house to the pro- 
 vision made for their judiciary, by some of the States of this 
 Union. And here, it is to be observed, that the comparison 
 is to be instituted between the present salaries in Kentucky 
 
54 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 and those cited. The depreciation of money, or the rise in 
 the prices of all articles of consumption, which is the same 
 thing, is general throughout the United States, and will com- 
 pel the several States to readjust the government expen- 
 ditures. At the time, then, when Kentucky gives her supreme 
 court $1,500, and her circuit |1,000, Massachusetts, celebra- 
 ted for economy and closeness of calculation, gives to the 
 chief justice of her supreme court $3,500, to the associate 
 judges $3,000, and to the chief justice of the court of com- 
 mon pleas $2,100, and to the associate judges of the same 
 court $1,800. Virginia, our mother, gives to the chief 
 justice of her court of appeals $2,720, and to the associate 
 judges $2,500. New York to her supreme court $2,500; 
 Pennsylvania $2,666; Maryland gives to her chancellor 
 $2,600, to her appellate court $2,500. North Carolina gives 
 to her judges of the supreme court each $2,500. South 
 Carolina to her chancellors $3,500, to her other judges, of 
 which she has many more than we, the salaries range from 
 $3,500 to $2,500, according to the different parts of the 
 State where they preside. Georgia gives to her circuit 
 judges ^$2,100. Alabama to her supreme court $1,750, to 
 her circuit judges $1,500. Mississippi gives her judges 
 $2,000, and Louisiana $5,000. 
 
 We have cited enough to show that we are far, far behind 
 the liberality, or rather the policy of other States in the 
 Union. There are, the committee believe, but two, who have 
 imitated our parsimony, and they among the smallest and 
 least important in the Union. The board of internal improve- 
 ment have made some remarks in their annual report upon 
 the subject of the salaries of the engineers, which are full of 
 sense, and are applicable to every branch of the public ex- 
 penditure, and contain the true principles of economy. 
 
 The committee beg leave to quote them. "The expense of 
 such a work, (say the board,) though conducted with the 
 greatest wisdom, must be considerable, but under the manage- 
 ment of ignorance or inexperience can not be estimated. The 
 amount of salary necessary to command the most experienced 
 
THE JUDTCIAEY. 55 
 
 and skillful engineers vanishes into nothingness, when com- 
 pared with the vast expense that might be incurred, and alto- 
 gether lost to the State, by the mistakes and failures of 
 ignorance or inexperience." They have accordingly given to 
 their principal engineer |3,000, and promised him $4,000 for 
 the next year, and to his assistant, a young gentleman, whom 
 they approve for the service, $1,800. Verily this is a strange 
 state of things. A court whose decision is the supreme rule 
 of property for more than half a million of people, and the 
 requisite qualifications for the office costing the labor of half 
 a life, receives from the State $1,600, and a youth, a sur- 
 veyor of roads and rivers, who may acquire the mathematical 
 principles necessary for him to enter upon his profession in 
 twelve months, receives $1,800. The board of improvement 
 were right. But are we right? Does an able, upright, profound 
 Judiciary save nothing to the public? Can we retain or pro- 
 cure such with the present niggardly salaries which degrade 
 the Judicial office below every other liberal pursuit? The 
 committee believe, that the present number of circuits is not 
 too great, nor the terms too frequent. They believe that the 
 court in the last resort, should have higher salaries than the 
 Circuit Judges. They believe that there are some parts of 
 the State, as Louisville, where the expenses of living, and the 
 amount of labor are so great, that there should be a. distinc- 
 tion in their salaries, commensurate with this difference. 
 They venture to recommend that the salaries of the Circuit 
 Judges should be raised to at least $2,000, and of the Judges 
 of the Appellate Court to $2,500. The Chancellor at Louis- 
 ville, and the Judge of the Circuit Court there, should, to 
 equalize them in fact with the others, receive, the Chancellor 
 $3,000, and the Circuit Judge $2,500. 
 
 It is not the business of this committee to provide the ways 
 and means to meet this additional charge upon the treasury. 
 They would feel themselves constrained to propose what they 
 have done, though it led to additional taxation. The in- 
 creased expense, admitting that there is nothing saved by a 
 modification of the Jury laws, or by some change in the num- 
 
56 T. F. MAESHALI-. 
 
 ber of the Judicial terms, or in any other way, will be about 
 twenty thousand dollars. The cost of five miles of Mc- 
 Adamized road, to place the Judicial system of a great and 
 growing commonwealth upon a respectable footing, would 
 seem to be no heavy matter. The sum, if collected by a 
 capitation tax, would amount to about four cents a head. If 
 upon our present revenue system, it would be about IJ cent 
 on the hundred dollars. The proportion between the good to 
 be attained arid the instrument is almost ludicrous. Did it 
 cost more, there would be more glory in it, and more import- 
 ance would probably be attached to it. The insignificance of 
 the means, it would seem, has brought the end, grand as it is, 
 into contempt. The committee have prepared, and beg leave 
 to report a bill for the raising of the salaries of the Judges, 
 leaving the blanks to be filled by the House. In their bill, 
 they have made the salaries prospective. By this means 
 those ofiicers who command the public confidence, and have 
 sufficient reliance upon their own character to risk a resig- 
 nation, can be reappointed with a somewhat more adequate 
 provision. Those who fear to trust their pretensions to the 
 ordeal of the appointing power, if there be any such, can 
 linger on the bench upon their present wretched stipend, till 
 death, or the disgrace of such a situation, shall relieve the 
 country and themselves. It is scarcely to be believed that 
 there is any man, however incompetent as a judge, who has 
 not more dignity of mind than to acknowledge such incompe- 
 tency by continuing in a situation of public trust for half 
 what his brother functionaries receive. And jf there be such, 
 it shows into what hands the miserable pittance allowed by 
 law has thrown an office, which, from its nature, should be 
 among the most dignified, as it is, undoubtedly, the most 
 useful and difficult in the Commonwealth. 
 
ON BANKS. 57 
 
 REPORT ON BANKS, 
 
 Made to the Legislature of Kentucky, on the 5th of February, 1840. 
 
 The financial depression of 1837 was succeeded by an universal interest in 
 the condition of the various Banking Institutions throughout the country. 
 The Kentucky Legislature, during its session of 1889 — 40, appointed u 
 joint committee on Banks, oousisting of six members, two from the 
 upper, and four from the lower House, — Mr. Marshall being one of the 
 latter. After due investigation, they made a joint report to the Legis- 
 lature on the 28th of January, 1840. On the 5 th of February, Mr. 
 Maeshall communicated to that body the following additional report. It 
 "was received, read, and three thousand copies ordered to be printed." 
 So highly was it appreciated, that most prudential bankers preserved it in 
 their institutions, as an embodiment of correct banking principles. The 
 financial student may search in vain, the archives of the country, for an 
 abler document upon this subject: — 
 
 The Joint Committee on Banks, in addition to their former 
 report, beg leave respectfully to submit a few suggestions in 
 relation to the dealings of the Banks in Exchange, and the 
 recent suspension of cash payments. 
 
 The Exchanges have been the subject of serious complaints 
 in the country, and of frequent and loud denunciations in the 
 Legislature. It seems to be supposed by some persons, that 
 the Banks deal in Bills merely for the purpose of evading the 
 limitations on interest in their charters: that the Exchange is 
 an arbitrary and unnecessary charge, an unjust tax upon the 
 commerce of the country, and a clear and illegal profit to the 
 Banks. Such persons believe that the Banks should be com- 
 pelled to advance their capital or credit upon the discount of 
 promissory notes alone, and that the Commercial Exchanges 
 should be left to the control and enjoyment of private brokers 
 and individual traders. The reasons mainly for these sus- 
 picions among the people, are to be found in the altered 
 state of the Exchanges within a few years. The course of 
 
58 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 our trade remains unaltered ; we deal in the same articles and 
 at the same points. We drive our live stock to Virginia and 
 the Carolinas ; we ship our manufactures, and the products of 
 our fields to New Orleans; we import from Philadelphia, 
 Baltimore, and New York. Nature and man and trade are 
 unchanged. Yet a Bill drawn upon the same point, by the 
 same person and upon the same export, has fallen, and the 
 merchant who , imports can no longer make his payments 
 abroad upon the same terms as formerly. It is not unnatural 
 that the mass of persons who look not beyond the naked fact, 
 should ascribe it, as they do, to the cupidity and avarice of 
 those to whom the law has allowed, and in whom either the 
 interest of the parties, the law of commerce, habit, or some- 
 thing else, has, in point of fact, vested almost exclusively the 
 management of the business. 
 
 Impressed deeply with the opinion that a large participa- 
 tion in the commercial Exchanges is essential to the safety of 
 the Banks and the purity of the currency — that without it 
 they can in no degree fulfill the end of their creation, or 
 discharge the duties which their nature, situation and the cir- 
 cumstances and laws of the country impose upon them — the 
 Committee deem it not impertinent to their duty to state the 
 principles, which, in their judgment, govern the subject and 
 have decided their opinions. The Committee certainly did not 
 conduct their investigations with any disposition to connive at 
 abuses in the Banks, If those institutions lie under heavy 
 obligations, they also enjoy important and valuable privileges. 
 Although, in the legitimate discharge of their appropriate 
 functions, they are inestimable auxiliaries to credit and com- 
 merce, -still they may be perverted into the most fruitful 
 sources of private ruin and public confusion. The situation 
 of our public aifairs is precisely that in which there is the 
 greatest call for steadiness and wisdom upon the part of the 
 Banks, and for candor and firmness, tempered with modera- 
 tion, upon the part of the Government. It is impossible to 
 treat the conduct of the Banks with any thing like fairness, 
 or at all to explain or i-econcile the prejudices and suspicions 
 
ON BANKS. 59 
 
 to which the Committee have heretofore alluded, without ex- 
 tending our view a little back from the present time, and 
 contemplating the great revolution which a few years has 
 brought about in the internal policy and administration of 
 the States of the Union, and their relations with the National 
 Government. 
 
 The Committee believe, then, that the Banks can not per- 
 form the duties which they were created to perform, without 
 dealing, and that largely, in the exchanges. They can not 
 do that, without which they ought not to exist, to wit, 
 maintain a paper circulation, at all times convertible into 
 gold or silver, without this power. The Committee believe, 
 moreover, from the most thorough scrutiny, that the Bank 
 charges do not exceed the fair rates as determined by com- 
 mercial circumstances, and that they are far below what 
 private brokers would charge, if free from Bank competition. 
 
 Upon the expiration of the charter of the Bank of the 
 United States, and the withdrawal of its capital from 
 our State, a large debt was due to that institution, from 
 our citizens. The total withdrawal of that capital, and the 
 sudden and forced collection of that debt, would have been 
 accompanied by circumstances of distress, the acuteness and 
 force of which, it is not easy to estimate. Kentucky was 
 driven to the necessity of inviting fresh capital, through the 
 agency of Bank charters, conferring upon it important privi- 
 leges, but regulating and restraining its exercise, and its 
 profits, and thereby saving the country from the sudden 
 collection of its whole debt, and from the unbridled rapacity 
 of private usury and extortion. The Kentucky Banks assumed 
 the debt of the people to the Bank of the United States, and 
 the country passed through a great and total revolution of 
 its currency, without shock or convulsion.- 
 
 The capital of the Banks consists in stock, subscribed and 
 owned by individuals principally out of the State, and by the 
 State herself. Shortly after the establishment of the Banks, 
 the State went into a liberal and comprehensive system of 
 Internal Improvement — to be conducted by means of foreign 
 
60 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 loans — the dividends of her Bank stock being pledged for the 
 payment of the interest. It will be perceived,, then, that the 
 whole, or nearly the whole, of the dividends of the Bank 
 stock, together with the debt to the Bank of the United 
 States, constituted, at the outset, a charge against our Banks, 
 to be paid abroad. It was, and is, foreign expenditure, to be 
 met by our commerce. In what way could the Banks provide, 
 or can they hereafter provide, for payments of this descrip- 
 tion, save through the instrumentality of Bills of Exchange ? 
 These items are independent of the ordinary commercial debt 
 of the country, growing out of its importations for the annual 
 consumption of the people, or for permanent additions to its 
 capital, in the shape of public works and improvements, which 
 the State is endeavoring to construct in aid of its future 
 industry and production. 
 
 There is, also, an other demand against the Banks, growing 
 out of the emigration westward, and the annual investments 
 from this State in the public lands. This differs in its opera- 
 tion from those which we have already enumerated, in as 
 much as it is to be met with specie, not exchange, and there- 
 by imposes upon the Banks the necessity of supplying them- 
 selves regularly with an amount of the precious metals equal 
 to it,' over and above what the necessities of their circulation 
 would otherwise require. This amount, to be renewed an- 
 nually, can only be obtained by means of Bills of Exchange, 
 and these importations of specie, to be made m«rely for the 
 purpose of immediate exportation, are at the entire cost of 
 the Banks. The exportations and investments which are the 
 source of this demand, are a clear and palpable loss of capital 
 to th^ State of Kentucky, and a loss imposed in the most 
 inconvenient form possible. For these exportations, there is 
 no commercial return of any thing which is to be consumed 
 within our State. They mark the diffusion of the population 
 of the United States, and the rapid settlement, or acquisition, 
 at least, by private individuals, of her vast national domain; 
 a diffusion and settlement, however, which is made at the 
 present expense of capital and people to the older States. 
 
ON BANKS. 61 
 
 The Banks, in considerati6n that they are permitted to 
 extend their circulation to twice the amount of their capital, 
 to substitute their credit in the place of coin, and to draw a 
 profit from their Promissory Notes, in which their circulation 
 consists, are under the legal obligation to maintain that cir- 
 culation at par value with the money of the constitution, by 
 redeeming it always, upon demand, in gold or silver, thereby 
 conferring upon the people an instrument of commerce, of 
 equal value with the precious metals, but of far greater 
 activity, and receiving, as the equivalent for this almost 
 inestimable convenience, the corporate privileges. And how ia 
 this to be achieved? The Committee answer, by investing 
 their credit principally in Bills of 'Exchange; nay, a perfectly 
 sound system of Banking would require that all beyond the 
 original capital of the Banks should be invested in and 
 represent either Bills of Exchange, drawn upon the exports 
 of the country, or Business Paper of short date, and always 
 payable at maturity. , The Committee beg leave to explain a 
 position, in their judgment, of the utmost importance, and 
 which they are aware will meet with some opposition. Banks, 
 justly considered among the' greatest improvements of modern 
 times, originated among the free and commercial States of 
 the continent of Europe. Genoa, Hamburg, and Amsterdam, 
 struggle for the honor of their invention. Centuries had 
 rolled over the feudal aristocracies, and found them still at 
 tilt and tournament, supporting their warlike pastimes, and 
 barbaric pomp, by exactions and tributes, wrung from the 
 oppressed agriculture of serfs and vassals. Banks were the 
 offspring of liberty and trade — a republican progeny — they 
 have marked or caused the rise of popular industry — the 
 growth of wealth and freedom, among the great body of the 
 people, where ever they have appeared. The first Banks which 
 appeared in Europe, grew out of, and were intended to cor- 
 rect the depreciation of the coin from wearing and clipping. 
 The commercial States to which I have referred, carrying on, 
 at that time, almost the entire trade of Europe, and the 
 balances of payment with the neighboring countries being 
 
62 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 consequeijitly in their favor, were exposed to an influx of the 
 adulterated, worn and clipped coin of every country in 
 Europe. To protect themselves from the mischiefs of this 
 state, and to rectify commercial exchange, the merchants 
 established Banks of deposit, in which the mptallic currency 
 was deposited, -according to its actual weight and fineness, 
 and a certificate granted to the depositor, representing the 
 intrinsic value and real amount, by weight, of the metal so 
 deposited. These certificates were called Bank money, and 
 were as much above the value of the currency in common 
 use, as that currency had lost by the wear of the metal. The 
 merchants employed them in all the large transactions of 
 commerce. A Bill drawn upon Amsterdam, payable in these 
 certificates, bore a premium, corresponding to the superiority 
 of the Bank money; and the first idea of a Bank, grew out 
 of the disordered state of the exchanges, and was designed to 
 rectify and to regulate them. 
 
 This first plan of a Bank was soon improved upon — 
 suggesting the idea of a paper credit, circulating upon the 
 confidence that it actually represented what it purported upon 
 its face, and that it could be converted, whenever presented 
 at the Bank, into the real amount of the precious metals for 
 which it called, it was perceived that the certificate was pre- 
 ferred to the thing represented, for many i^easons. It was 
 more portable. It was easily transmitted to a distant point — 
 any value might be expressed in the small compass of a slip 
 of paper — no time or labor was lost in counting it; and not 
 exceeding in amount the real money of the country which 
 the trade required, it remained in circulation, passed from 
 hand to hand, and never returned to the Bank at all for pay- 
 ment, but only to be renewed when in danger of destruction. 
 It was, also, perceived that in this state of things and in the 
 enjoyment of this most convenient substitute, the metals 
 which it represented were lying idle and unproductive ; that 
 so long as the paper certificates completely supplied their 
 place, and performed their functions, this indolence was a 
 dead loss to the country; and, the last improvement, the 
 
ON BANKS. 63 
 
 Bank of discount and circulation followed, differing somewhat, 
 yet founded upon the original idea of the Bank of deposit. 
 The Committee have traced the principle for which they con- 
 tend to a great distance, and they fear, after a tedious 
 fashion ; but they deem it of the utmost importance, and they 
 wish to explore, and place it firm upon its original, true, and, 
 as they believe, everlasting foundation. And what is the 
 principle? Why, that paper representing coin is preferable, 
 as an instrument of commerce, to coin, and can be circulated 
 within a given country, upon confidence — not authority ; upon 
 credit — not force, as a substitute, for an indefinite period of 
 time, provided it do not exceed, in quantity, the amount of 
 coin which the trade and business transactions of the particu- 
 lar country where it is employed, would otherwise absorb and 
 keep in circulation. If the money deposited in the Bank of 
 Amsterdam, which was truly and exactly represented by the 
 Bank certificates of deposit, were greater, at any given time^ 
 than the business of Amsterdam^ required, and she had any 
 relations of foreign trade, there arose at once the temptation 
 to employ this excess abroad. The certificate would be re- 
 turned to the Bank, the metals drawn and transported, and 
 the circulation, diminished by this amount, go on, without 
 other disturbance, relieved of its excess. What, then, is the 
 great desideratum in modern banking, and what are the means 
 by which the shock of suspensions of cash payments and the 
 consequent destruction of the most delicatfe of all fabrics, 
 credit, can be warded off and prevented? Are we to be told 
 that the Banks are safe, while they lend upon good and safe 
 securities ? That they may advance to any extent, and for 
 any object, and the credit of their paper will be unimpaired — 
 and that confidence will remain unshaken so long as they take 
 substantial guarantees for their debts? If so, a Bank might 
 issue safely to the whole amount of the value of all the real 
 and personal property in the Commonwealth, upon mortgage, 
 which is absurd. 
 
 Although confidence in the solvency of a Bank and the 
 soundness of the securities for its debts is all important to the 
 
64 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 credit of its circulation, yet there are other causes, certain 
 and unavoidable in their operation, which will occasion the 
 return of its circulation upon it to an, extent measured by the 
 force of the cause. At this very instant of time our own Banks 
 are unable, in their judgment, to maintain specie payments, 
 although no rational man doubts for an instant the sufficiency 
 of their assets, or their ultimate ability to redeem their circu- 
 lation and pay their depositors three times over. The circu- 
 lation of a Bank may return upon it, from distrust of the 
 Bank, from mere panic and alarm, or on account of foreign 
 demand for a subsisting commercial debt, or from an excess 
 of currency. ' To the two former causes Banks, constituted as 
 ours, are not often liable. To the two latter, all Banks are 
 exposed. To secure the country from an excess of currency, 
 a,nd its consequent depreciation, with the long train of evils 
 which follow, all governments, where the principles of liberty 
 and commercial policy are understood and recognized, require 
 paper, circulating as money and bearing no interest to the 
 holder, to be paid on demand in that which is alone recog- 
 nized by the laws of this country, and the universal assent of 
 mankind as the standard of value. To protect itself against 
 the constant recurrence of its circulation, and as the best 
 guard over specie payments, the Bank is allowed to deal in 
 exchange. If its whole circulation be invested in funds at 
 the points in favor of which the debt against the country ex- 
 ists, which can only be done by the purchase of bills, is it 
 not at once perceived, that though the whole should return 
 upon it at once, that the foreign demand can be more easily 
 S9.tisfied, by drafts upon funds already at the point where they 
 are required, than in any other way ? If our Banks had been 
 supplied with exchange to the extent of their circulation last 
 October, they might have bid defiance to the brokers of Cin- 
 cinnati. Unless our Banks dealt in exchange, it seems to the 
 Committee that it is scarcely necessary to argue further to 
 show their utter defenselessness. The private dealers, ope- 
 rating upon their currency, would necessarily draw their specie 
 
ON BANKS. 65 
 
 for remittance, and without bills, the Committee know of no' 
 way by which the Banks could replenish their vaults. 
 
 The Committee have shown, they think, that in a country 
 using a paper currency, and having any foreign commerce, 
 the debt created by its importations, will, without any want 
 of confidence in the issuers of the paper, or any excess of 
 issue, necessarily return their paper upon the Banks, whenever 
 foreign payments ar6 to be made, for the simple reason that 
 the paper will not answer the purpose of remittance, and can 
 not be transmitted to a distant and foreign point without loss. 
 The Banks can have no means of meeting this necessary and 
 regularly recurring demand, unless with specie, or checks upon 
 funds previously provided, at the points where payments are 
 to be made by our merchants. If, with specie, the Banks 
 would be under the necessity of providing it to the extent of 
 the whole commercial debt of the country, the whole business 
 of banking would consist in importing specie to be immedi- 
 ately carried out of the country again, to the great inconve- 
 nience and cost of the Banks, in bringing it in, and to the 
 equally great inconvenience and cost of the merchants, in 
 carrying it out. But even this most clumsy and unprofitable 
 of all trades could not be carried on without dealing in bills. 
 A country having no mines can only supply itself with the 
 precious metals by means of bills drawn upon points where 
 the meta;]s can be purchased. To prohibit Banks from deal- 
 ing in Exchange is the most efi'ectual mode yet devised of 
 breaking down the banking system. 
 
 A country having no foreign trade, may, it would seem, 
 extend its paper currency to any conceivable amount. The 
 effect, however, the necessary and unavoidable effect of the 
 great augmentation of a circulating medium, is the deprecia- 
 tion of that medium, in whatever it may consist. In other 
 words, the increase will be absorbed, and exhibit itself in the 
 increased money price of all other commodities, which are the 
 products of labor and the subject of sale or Exchange. This 
 would be the only effect where there was no foreign trade, 
 and a very mischievous and fraudjzlent effect it would be. 
 
66 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 In a country having commercial relations with others, the 
 rise in prices occasioned by a great augmentation in the 
 circulating medium, necessarily increases for the time the 
 importations, and diminishes the exportiltions, and thereby 
 creates what is called an unfavorable balance of trade against 
 the country having the augmented circulating medium. The 
 balance of commercial debt must be paid, or the trade must 
 cease ; neither nations nor individuals give away the produc- 
 tions of their industry. If the debtor country use a metallic 
 circulation, this balance is easily adjusted by the exportation 
 of the metals. This diminishes the circulation in the one 
 country — increases it in the other — relieves the Exchange, 
 and restores the equilibrium of trade. If the debtor country 
 use a paper money, convertible into coin, the same effects 
 will be produced by excess, and the same thing will happen, 
 but in a different way. The paper can not be exported, as it 
 will not satisfy the foreign demand for money. To the extent 
 of that demand it will be thrown back upon the Banks, and 
 the specie drawn for exportation. If the excess of circulation 
 equal the whole specie of the Banks, it will all be drawn. If 
 it exceed it, suspension is the necessary consequence — the 
 paper will depreciate ; that depreciation will exhibit itself in 
 the Exchange, and will fall, as a dead loss, upon the mercan- 
 tile class engaged in importation. 
 
 It seems obvious, from these principles, that where the 
 great portion of Bank circulation is based upon the exports 
 of a country, and is represented by bills drawn upon those 
 exports, so far as the Banks are concerned, no improper or 
 unhealthy stimulus can be given to importations. If they be 
 excessive, it can not be ascribed to the currency, nor will such 
 excess affect the stability or the purity of it. The Committee 
 will not extend their views farther on this head, but will pass 
 to the charge of extortion against the Banks in the rates of 
 exchange which they charge. There is one fact developed 
 upon this subject, which, in the judgment of the Committee, 
 settles the question as to whether the Banks exceed, in their 
 charges, the natural rates of exchange as determined by com- 
 
ON BANKS. 67 
 
 mercial circumstances, or do the business upon better terms 
 than private brokers would do it. It is this : the rates of 
 discount charged by the Banks upon bills drawn on those 
 points against which the balance of trade exists with this 
 country, is always less, from' two to three per cent., than the 
 discount charged by brokers upon the Bank paper payable at 
 the same points. The note of a specie-paying Bank ought to 
 be a good Bill of Exchange upon the place where it is pay- 
 able, and its price elsewhere ought to be regulated by those 
 circumstances which determine the rates of exchange. Those 
 circumstances are, the relative state of the currencies, and the 
 balance of trade. If the paper of two countries be converti- 
 ble at home into specie, at home, respectively, the currencies 
 are equal to each other, because when measured in the metals, 
 which are the common standard of value throughout the com- 
 mercial world, they represent equal quantities. A twenty 
 dollar Bank note convertible into Specie at Charleston, is 
 worth as much at Charleston as a twenty dollar bank bill 
 convertible into specie at Lexington, is at Lexington. The 
 currencies are, therefore, equal in this state of things, and the 
 only cause operating upon the exchange is the balance of 
 trade. If the debts and credits of two countries are precisely 
 equal, they balance each other, and exchange is even, or the 
 bills drawn in either country upon the other are at par. If 
 the debts of either country exceed what is due to it from the 
 other, -exchange is said to be against, the debtor country, and 
 bills drawn upon it are at a discount, and bills or checks pur- 
 chased in it upon the creditor country command a premium. 
 As tiius : if one class of mercliants at Lexington are indebted 
 to the city of Charleston in any sum, say $10,000, and the 
 city of Charleston is indebted to another class of merchants 
 at Lexington in the same sum, there is at once the foundation 
 of an eqhal exchange of debts. The Lexington debtor wants 
 funds at Charleston. The Lexington creditor has funds there 
 to an equal amount, which he tvants at Lexington. The 
 debtor merchant advances the money to the creditor at Lex- 
 ington, and receives a bill upon Charleston payable there in 
 
68 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 specie — he remits the bill, without cost, and pays his debt 
 without the loss of time, or the risk and expense of transmit- 
 ting the metals. In this state of things, it is evident that 
 there can be no difference, whether the creditor merchant at 
 Lexiagton give to the debtor a Bill of Exchange, or the note 
 of a specie-paying Bank, at Charleston ; they are of equal 
 value. But vary this statement. Suppose that Charleston is 
 indebted to Lexington, and Lexington not indebted to Charles- 
 ton, which in the course of our trade is always the fact, then 
 the balance of trade is against Charleston, and the man in 
 Lexington who holds a note on Charleston holds a security 
 perfectly good, and worth, at the place of payment, exactly 
 what it purports on its face to be worth; but not payable 
 where it is, and no person there wanting money at Charleston, 
 no person will give for it its par value, and saddle himself 
 with the trouble and loss of time of sending it home, drawing 
 the money, and bringing it to Lexington : the bill or note 
 falls, and it should seem they ought to fall in an equal degree. 
 What should be the natural rate of this fall, or what, in other 
 words, the exchange? Why, evidently, the time lost in re- 
 mitting the note, and in bringing home the money, the insur- 
 ance or risk and a profit upon the 'capital advanced for the 
 bill or note equal to what the person advancing it could make 
 out of it in any other way at home, are the circumstances 
 which determine it. The Banks deal in Bills of Exchange. 
 The brokers in Bank paper. The discount upon bills bought 
 by the Banks is always less than the discount upon notes 
 bought by the brokers, though payable at the same place. 
 There can be no good reason assigned for the difference, but 
 that Banks are enabled to conduct the operations of exchange, 
 by means of their capital, their credit, their agencies, and 
 their connection with the various commercial points with which 
 our industry has any relations, upon better terms and with 
 more certainty than private dealers. 
 
 When a Bank buys a bill, having four months to run, it 
 sometimes charges a greater rate of exchange than for a bill 
 upon the same point at a shorter date. The attention of the 
 
ON BANKS. 69 
 
 Committee was especially directed to this particular. The 
 reasons assigned by the Banks, and which appear satisfactory 
 to the Committee, are, that they purchase bills upon the points 
 at which the great exportations are made from this country, 
 for the purpose of reinvesting their proceeds in exchange upon 
 those points where the balance of payments are against this 
 country.. That the facility of obtaining this exchange is 
 greater at some seasons of the year than others. That after 
 a bill which they purchase is paid, it yields them no profit, 
 and is, in fact, dead capital till reinvested. That, in the dis- 
 turbed state, and unsettled condition of the banking system 
 in the United States, there can be no absolutely certain cal- 
 culations upon the currency in which the bills are to be paid. 
 That the Banks consider they have a right to an adequate 
 compensation for these circumstances. With regard to the 
 last, they remark that, upon the bills purchased upon the 
 South, before the suspension in October, the Banks have actu- 
 ally lost. 
 
 That the Bank of the United States dealt in exchange upon 
 much better terms than the present Banks, is admitted on all 
 hands, we believe. Remittances were made and balances set- 
 tled, during the existence of that institution, at much less 
 cost to commerce than now. But is it just or fair to ascribe 
 the change to the injustice and extortion of our Banks ? We 
 have already glanced at the principles which regulate, and the 
 circumstances which determine, ordinarily, the rates of ex- 
 change; let us examine and apply rthem to the Bank of the 
 United States. The circumstances which mainly influence the 
 commercial exchanges between countries, or States, which 
 trade with each other, are, the relative state of the curren- 
 cies, and the balance of trade. These causes may be counter- 
 acted, or aggravated, in their operation, by the power or 
 weakness of the instruments employed in the commerce. The 
 Bank of the United States was one body, but occupying, with 
 its various branches or member^, every point of business in 
 the whole Union. Its dividends were the result of the com- 
 bined profits of all its branches. It was immaterial to the 
 
70 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 Bank whether its funds were in New York or New Orleans, 
 in Lexington or in Charleston, wherever commerce bore or 
 required them, they were for ever active. Whether employed 
 by the parent, or the branch, the profit was still the Bank's, 
 and went to swell the dividends of the stockholders. When 
 the Northern Bank of Kentucky buys a bill upon New Or- 
 hiins, payable at a season of the year when exchange upon 
 Philadelphia or New York can not be procured, the funds of 
 the Northern Bank, so invested, lie idle in New Orleans, as a 
 deposit, in some Bank there which pays no interest for it, and 
 the Northern Bank compensates, and has a right to compen- 
 sate, herself for this loss, in the enhanced rate of exchange 
 upon New Orleans. When the Bank of the United States 
 threw funds there, by the same means, she was exposed to no 
 such risk. Until she required them in New York or Phila- 
 delphia they were actively employed by her branch at New 
 Orleans, the profits of which were a portion of her own. 
 Here, then, is an item in the. rates of exchange which did not 
 enter into the operation of the Bank- of the United States. 
 The difference in the machinery of that institution enabled it 
 to save this cost to commerce without loss to itself. If two 
 States trade with each other, and the currency of the one is 
 depreciated below the specie standard, and the other not, this 
 depreciation will be exhibited in the exchange against the 
 country whose currency is depreciated. As thus : a bill drawn 
 upon Mississippi, when Mississippi currency is worth fifteea 
 per cent, less than silver, and sold in Kentucky for a cur- 
 rency equal to silver, the bill would be fifteen per cent, below 
 par, although the balance of trade was even between the two 
 countries. This cause could never operate upon the exchanges 
 between the States during the existence of the Bank of the 
 United States. Its circulation was common to all the States, 
 and was always at par with specie. But even if the Bank of 
 the United States had suspended, its circulation was equal to 
 itself, and any depreciation in it would have been uniform 
 throughout all the States whose currency it composed : so 
 that this cause of fluctuation and disturbance in the exchan ^es 
 
ON BANKS. 71 
 
 could not happen during the existence of that institution. The 
 balance pf trade itself, which among nations having no com- 
 mon currency but the metals, is considered as the great index 
 and regulator of exchanges, had none or scarcely a percep- 
 tible influence over the domestic trade of the States. The 
 Bank of the United States equalized the exchanges between 
 the States. And how ? The currency of South Carolina, was 
 the currency of Kentucky and the currency of New York, 
 receivable and payable there. The cost of transmitting the 
 metals was saved, by the substitution of a medium which was 
 of par value with them, not only in the debtor State, but at 
 every other point. The stock drover who sold his mules or 
 horses at Charleston, received a paper which lost nothing of 
 its value by being brought to Lexington. The merchant at 
 Lexington, who received it from the drover, need not convert 
 it into a Bill of Exchange upon New York or draw the specie 
 for it. It was itself a Bill of Exchange. It was not South 
 Carolina or Kentucky paper, payable only at those points ; it 
 was American money, equal to specie every where, flowing 
 without restraint or depreciation throughout the whole com- 
 mercial body of which it was the blood. Nothing but the 
 precious metals ever enjoyed so extensive a credit as the pa- 
 per of that Bank. It was, in relation to the whole Union, 
 what the precious metals are in relation to the whole world, 
 a universal equivalent. Commerce distributed it with just so 
 much more facility and at so much less cost, than it does the 
 precious metals, as is the difference between the physical pro- 
 perties of paper and bullion. That difference is the true 
 measure and the cause of the improved rates of exchange 
 under the operation of that Bank. It would be felt and ex- 
 hibited though the whole banking system should be disused, 
 and a circulation exclusively metallic adopted in its stead. 
 
 This universal credit of the paper of the Bank of the United 
 States had a broader foundation even than its capital. It was 
 the depository of the national revenue, and its paper was re- 
 ceived in payment of that revenue. During the existence of 
 the Bank, that revenue was annually equal to the whole capi- 
 
72 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 tal of the Baijc. It was a fund in the hands of the Bank for 
 commercial purposes, up to the very instant when the Govern- 
 ment required its disbursement, and the disbursement was 
 then made through means of that very credit which the Bank 
 derived from the revenue. Wherever revenue was payable, 
 there, of course, the paper was in demand. The debts of the 
 interior States were due principally at the great points of im- 
 portation on the seaboard, and at those points the revenue 
 was mainly collected. Thus, who ever held a note on the Bank 
 of the United States, held a certificate, which, if transmitted 
 to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston, New Orleans, 
 or to the extremest Western Land OfiBce, was received at its 
 full value, in the payment of a debt to the Government, which 
 debt annually exceeded the whole amount of the circulation of 
 the Bank at any one time. Thus the credit of the Bank was 
 as diffusive as the revenue. When idle to the Government, 
 the revenue was busy in commerce ; and when needed by the 
 Government, it was present at the very spot where it was re- 
 quired. It gave to the Bank, strength, and derived from the 
 Bank, activity. To illustrate this connexion, let us put a 
 case : The Government of the United States has its means 
 on deposit with the Bank of the United States in Philadelphia 
 — means which are then actively employed in the commerce 
 of that city.; the Government of the United States owes an 
 installment of the public debt, payable in London; she calls 
 upon the Bank for that much of the revenue which the Bank 
 has on deposit ; at Charleston and New Orleans the Bank has 
 purchased Bills upon London, drawn upon the cotton exported 
 from those points ; the proceeds of those Bills are lying in 
 London, to the credit of the Bank; the Bank gives the Gov- 
 ernment a draft on London, and the debt is paid. Thus the 
 revenue at Charleston or New Orleans is advanced to com- 
 merce in the purchase of English Bills, and the revenue at 
 Philadelphia is thrown to London by the scrape of a pen; 
 and in both cases the circulation is undisturbed; not a dollar 
 changes its place. Let us suppose another case: Two mil- 
 lions of the surplus revenue are due to Kentucky from the 
 
ON BANKS, 73 
 
 Government of the United States ; she directs the Bank at 
 New York or Philadelphia to pay it out of the public deposits 
 there; the commercial odebt from Kentucky is due at New 
 York, and it is there that she wants the money; the Bank 
 gives to Kentucky a credit at New York; Kentucky checks 
 on it in favor of her merchants; and thus, by this simple 
 operation, the Bank pays the Government of- the United 
 States, the Government pays the State of Kentucky, the com- 
 mercial debt of Kentucky is paid at New York, and by this 
 general settlement, the State of Kentucky realizes at home 
 the two millions of dollars ; and this without the transmission 
 of a cent. Thus did the Bank, the revenuo, and the com- 
 merce of the country, assist each other. Never were the 
 foundations of credit dug so deep as those of the Bank of 
 the United States, and never did foundations better sustain a 
 superstructure. With a capital of thirty-five millions, . the 
 Government deposits thirty-five millions more, and a credit 
 of thirty -five millions more, derived from its receivability in 
 payment .of the revenue, it is not to be wondered at, that the 
 credit of a circulation of twenty-one millions was equal to 
 gold and silver. 
 
 The committee have referred to this subject, from a desire 
 simply to rescue our present Banks, in the eyes of' the 
 people, from an odium, on account of evils and disorders, 
 with which they a|^ not justly chargeable. It is the hight of 
 cruelty to exact duties from agents upon whom there is not 
 conferred the power to perform them. The clamor against 
 the Banks upon the subject of Exchange, has, we have no 
 doubt, had its influence upon their management, and may 
 force them into a line of dealing which will convert a sound 
 circulating credit into a wretched system of paper money. 
 By a circulating credit, we mean a Bank paper based upon 
 confidence, and convertible into cash at the will of the holder : 
 by paper money, a medium forced upon the people by the 
 authority of government, inconvertible, and not intrinsically 
 worth what it afiects to represent, and circulating either by a 
 direct exertion of the power of the State, or submitted to 
 
74 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 from the force of circumstances induced by vicious legislation. 
 An illustration of the fii-st may be found in the paper of the 
 Bank of the United States; the Assignats of France or the 
 Commonwealth's Bank of Kentucky may serve as examples 
 of the latter. The committee place a high estimate upon a 
 well regulated banking system, and have stated some of the 
 advantages flowing from it; but paper credit has its dangers, 
 and they are terrific. That a currency consisting of Bank 
 notes can be kept permanently sound with the check of cash 
 payments thrown off, is at war with all experience. The 
 Committee mean not to deny that there are occasions when a 
 temporary suspension of cash payments is to be justified. In 
 the commercial system of the world, there occur some times 
 convulsions against which no foresight can provide, and which 
 bafBe and render inefiicient all the calculations of prudence; 
 but the rules and maxims of wisdom and experience, though 
 wisdom herself may dispense with them on occasions which 
 know no law, are never to be lost sight of, nor thrown away. 
 The Suspension of 1837 may be justified, not as an example, 
 but as an exception to all rules. That case stands upon its 
 own reasons. It was indeed the regular consequence of a 
 series of commercial and political events over which our 
 Banks had no control, and for which they are not responsible, 
 but which should afford to them and to us, matter for deep 
 reflection. If that case is relied upon to m-ove the propriety 
 of habitual suspensions, and to establish as a general rule, 
 that our Banks are at liberty to suspend whenever the Banks 
 at New Orleans and Philadelphia suspend, and are then only 
 to resume when they resume, we deny its authority. This 
 were to place our currency, nay more, our law, at the foot, 
 not of an other government, but of the private corporations of 
 other governments,, and they recreant from the obligations of 
 their own laws. Great changes have come over the United 
 States in a few years ; but the principles of credit and the 
 nature of sovereignty can not be so utterly revolutionized, or 
 fallen, rather, as to require so monstrous a sacrifice as this. 
 The commercial systeni we know is a sensitive one ; the shock 
 
ON BANKS. 75 
 
 of 1837 vibrated throiigli every nerve and fiber of its whole 
 frame. Kentucky was affected sympathetically. The present 
 condition of her Banks shows that she has nearly recovered 
 from' the effects of that event. 
 
 Great changes have come over the United States. The 
 payment of the national debt, the expiration of the charter 
 of the Bank of the United States, the reduction of the tariff, 
 the stupendous system of debt, internal improvement and 
 banking, adopted by the States, were events, any one of 
 which must have heen followed by important consequences ; 
 but when combined, and all operating in the same direction, 
 they afford a spectacle at which those who are intrusted with 
 the management of public affairs may pause and ponder. Are 
 we to search for new rules of political conduct, or to apply 
 old ones to a new state of political circumstances? Shall we 
 rush upon expedients, or resort to the steady guidance of 
 tried principles? Shall we pay debts by the destruction of 
 credit, and out of prostrate credit wring the means of supply- 
 ing boundless exertion, with inexhaustible finance? Shall we 
 vail from the people the true condition of our public affairs ; 
 impose upon the Banks tho necessity, or at least afford the 
 pretext and apology, for an indefinite suspension of their legal 
 obligations, by large government loans upon time, and hide 
 our own improvident timidity, beneath the ample folds of a de- 
 preciated currency, that mantle which, like charity, "covereth 
 a multitude of sins?" The facility with which the Legislature 
 passed over the suspension of 1837 without rebuke, the 
 recurrence of a similiar event in 1839, are. fast familiarizing 
 the public mind with what ought justly to be regarded as the 
 most threatening and portentous omen of the times. In a 
 period of suspension every temptation to error allures the 
 Banks, the Grovernment, and the people. The Banks, the 
 very law of whose being is profit, are directly interested in 
 the continuance of a suspension) provided it does not work a 
 forfeiture of their charters. Mark the advantages; they are 
 authorized to extend their credit to twice the amount of their 
 capital, exclusive of their deposits. 
 
76 T. F. MAESHALIi. 
 
 We have already shown that the check of cash payments 
 limits their circulation to the real dema^id, or if an excess be 
 committed, such excess, by the necessary operation of the 
 thing and the conservative principle in commerce, is thrown 
 back upon the Bank. Take off this check, and there is no 
 limit to their issues or circulation, except the limitation in 
 their charters to twice the amount of their capital, if indeed 
 their charters can be considered as any longer binding. In 
 this state of things the dealings in exchange or in real trans- 
 actions is no longer a guarantee against excess, but becomes 
 each a means of increasing it. The proceeds of the bill pur- 
 chased are not, and need not be, employed in the redemption 
 of the circulation thrown out in purchasing it. That remains 
 in the channel, and the exchange is loaned upon accommoda- 
 tion paper. Business notes, based upon real transactions, may 
 also become the means of extending the circulation indefi- 
 nitely. A single piece of property may change owners an 
 hundred times, and upon each transfer a business note be 
 given and negotiated at the Bank. Thus A may sell to B 
 and take his note, B to C, and so on, till the value of a 
 single article may be represented an hundred times by as 
 many notes in Bank, and a corresponding amount of their 
 circulation be thrown out. Without cash payments the cir- 
 culation will, of itself, never return. 
 
 But is this increased circulation of debt an increase of 
 capital to the country? Is there actually that much more 
 money in the world? If so, an irredeemable paper, and an 
 irresponsible Bank, are the most glorious inventions of the 
 mind of man. Where slumbers the conservative principle 
 which we have spoken of and described as limiting the cir- 
 culation of a specie paying Bank? It never slumbers, it is in 
 active operation, but in a different way. It formerly limited 
 the amount of the paper, it now limits its value. Increase 
 the amount as you will, you can not increase thereby your 
 wealth, and the changeless law of equality cuts down the 
 currency by depreciation to the specie standard. This depre- 
 ciation exhibits itself in the increased prices of every thing, 
 
ON BANKS. 77 
 
 including the precious metals, if indeed they make their 
 appearance at all in such company. But chiefly and most 
 clearly it is made manifest in the commercial exchanges with 
 other countries. We can not palm ofi" the product of our 
 labor in exchange for that of other countries, at the price 
 affixed by our altered standard. The exchange must be 
 settled by an other rule. A yard of cloth will have laid on 
 it, by way of exchange, the full amount of depreciation, 
 though it be an hundred per cent. A mule sold in Carolina 
 will have the full amount of depreciation taken off his price 
 there. Thus, whether we buy or sell, we lose it. This 
 will alter the exchange with Carolina, an event which some 
 persons seem so anxiously to desire. Bills drawn upon her 
 will not be at a discount then. But the most iniquitous 
 effect of depreciating money is that upon contracts pre- 
 viously made, and here the law interposes: "No State shall 
 make any thing but gold and silver a legal tender for debts." 
 This is the eternal recognition of the principles of this report. 
 Here is established, by constitutional consecration a principle 
 equally dear to commerce and to freedom. And here, too, 
 is the point of greatest danger. Practically, the metals are 
 banished from circulation when, legally, they are demandable. 
 Practically, says the creditor, if I take this money I lose my 
 debt, or a portion of it at least. Legally, says the debtor, if 
 you require specie you sacrifice my property and require 
 what the course of the laws have rendered it impossible for 
 me to furnish. The country must have relief. All confidence 
 between man and man, all faith in the laws, is gone. Every 
 man wishes to get what he can before worse times come on. 
 Creditor is precipitated upon debtor, and a long catalogue of 
 evils, fresh in the memory of men yet alive, follow in the 
 rear. One of the distinguishing features in depreciation is, 
 that the farther you go in it the more difficult to return. It 
 is easy, very easy to pause upon the threshold. We have not 
 crossed it, and we need not. 
 
 The Committee do not charge the Banks with a design to 
 perpetuate the suspension; but we know that the career of 
 
78 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 depreciation would not check their profits. The power to 
 increase their debts to twice the amount of their capital, 
 without the obligation to pay, but on the contrary drawing 
 an interest from their own excesses, is a stupendous privilege, 
 and a fierce temptation. What, then, do the Committee 
 recommend? The eifeot of the suspension, if the Banks con- 
 tinue to act prudently, and with an eye to resume, will be to 
 enable them gradually to rectify the errors which they may 
 have heretofore committed. The proportions of Exchange 
 and specie to circulation and deposits, the limitation of their 
 direct loans to their original capital, or to an amount below 
 it, are circumstances which the Banks themselves say indicate 
 a sound course of business. The process of resumption is not 
 very profitable to the Banks, and not very agreeable for the 
 time to the country. It does not, however, involve necessarily, 
 any great or violent reduction of the circulating medium. It 
 need not be reduced below the point to which specie pay- 
 ments must and does limit it, and that is the true and healthy 
 point. It, most probably, is not above that point at this 
 instant. The Bank officers understand the steps which they 
 should take, better than the Legislature can dictate them. 
 Perhaps the most prudent course for the government to 
 pursue, is simply to speak to their interest, by prohibiting 
 the possibility of any profit to be made out of the suspension, 
 leaving the precise steps by which resumption is to be efi"ected, 
 to the experience and discretion of the directory themselves; 
 retain the penalties, and prohibit any dividend over six per 
 cent, upon the capital during suspension, and the State, per- 
 haps, would hold a more effectual guarantee than would be 
 furnished by any statute attempting to fix the limit of their 
 circulation, or to mark out the precise course of their dealing 
 in detail. No man, who will attentively examine their reports, 
 can doubt the sufficiency of their assets or their entire sol- 
 vency. The great demand for specie, which they say occa- 
 sioned the suspension in October, a demand which they had 
 no means available to satisfy, was not brought about, at least 
 not entirely, by their mismanagement. The Banks had a 
 
ON BANKS. 79 
 
 right to calculate on the loan of a million authorized by the 
 last General Assembly as a means of satisfying the commer- 
 cial debt of the country. That loan failed, and their exchange 
 was diminished to that extent, the commercial debt remaining 
 nearly the same with what it would have been had the loan 
 succeeded. 
 
 We wish to do these institutions entire justice, and will 
 endeavor to explain the operation of the State loan and the 
 consequence of its failure. The State, when she negotiates a 
 loan abroad, does not realize it by introducing that much 
 money from abroad. She has a credit at the place where the 
 loan is made. Upon this she draws, and the Banks advance 
 the money here upon these drafts, which are then in the 
 hands of the Banks as so much eastern Exchange. It will be 
 at once perceived that this necessarily occasions an expansion 
 of the Bank circulation — an expansion, however, which does 
 not threaten its purity, as the Banks hold in their hands the 
 certain means of its absorption, and as it is sure to return 
 upon them so soon as it has performed the function for which 
 it was destined by the State. Now the failure to negotiate 
 this loan was followed by two important consequences. The 
 Banks relying upon this, did not supply themselves with exr 
 change from other sources as abundantly as they otherwise 
 would have done; and yet made large advances to the Board 
 of Internal Improvement upon direct loan. It was perhaps 
 their duty to do so in the then condition of the State; but 
 the effect was certainly to swell the currency, with no other 
 means in the hands of the Bank to meet such extension, save 
 the obligation of the Board of Internal Improvement. It is 
 not the duty of this Committee to indicate the policy in rela- 
 tion to the system of Internal Improvement, and they have 
 only alluded to it as conntected with the currency. It must 
 be evident, however that under a permanent system of sus- 
 pension, Government loans from the Banks, exhibited in the 
 increased circulation of Bank paper, may become a pregnant 
 and most aggravated cause of depreciation. 
 
 The committee, in conclusion, beg leave again to reiterate 
 6 
 
80 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 the principles with -which they set out. Bank paper is not 
 capital, but credit — a credit equal to cash only so long as it 
 is convertible into cash. A currency, so composed, is pure 
 only so long as it is intrinsically worth what ii purports to 
 be worth. A sound paper currency can only be permanently 
 maintained by the check of cash payments. A sound paper 
 currency and a sound Banking system, may be maintained 
 within any given country, without reference to the policy or 
 unsoundness of any other country. No country can per- 
 manently maintain a greater currency, in value, whatever 
 may be its nominal amount, than the extent of its industry 
 and production, its trade and business, will support with 
 reference to the common standard of value among commercial 
 nations. The laws of trade and the operations of exchange 
 will cut it down, by depreciation, to the common measure of 
 mankind. Every effort to achieve what is, in nature, impos- 
 sible, will be followed by mischief and injustice. Bank paper 
 being credit, the purity of which depends upon its always 
 being met upon demand, is, from its nature, designed to cir- 
 culate and exchange the annual and marketable products of 
 industry, and is, therefore, an unfit subject for long loans and 
 permanent investments. As an advance upon real transactions, 
 an advance to be returned when the transaction is terminated, 
 Bank credit is the fruitful source of activity and punctuality 
 in business, and of inestimable value to labor and production. 
 Beyond this point it is always dangerous. In illustration of 
 this principle, the committee have heretofore laid it down as 
 a test of sound banking, "that all beyond the original capital 
 of the Banks, being the whole of its credit, should be invested 
 in and represent either Bills of Exchange, drawn upon the 
 exports of the country, or business paper of short date, and 
 alwa,ys payable at maturity." The operation of this principle 
 limits the circulation at any given time to the actual business 
 of the time. But that circulation by no means represents the 
 total of the operations of the Bank, or the extent of its 
 accommodations to the people. A different course of dealing 
 will swell the circulation by permitting it to lie in and clog 
 
ON BANKS. 81 
 
 the channels of industry, without extending any additional 
 accommodation to the people, or increasing the sum of com- 
 mercial transactions. As thus : the total exports of Kentucky, 
 represented by bills drawn on it, is exchanged with the Bank 
 for its paper here, and at this time measures its circulation. 
 That circulation is distributed in the first instance among the 
 people, in proportion to the amount of the exports which each 
 one produced and sold. The exchange into which those Bills 
 were converted, is intended to pay the commercial debt of 
 the country, and is advanced to the merchants, on business 
 paper, due from the people in whose hands the circulation is, 
 and payable at such time as the new supply of Bills drawn 
 upon the exports comes round. The Banks then draw in 
 their circulation, by the collection of the notes, and immedi- 
 ately throw it out again in the purchase of new Bills, drawn 
 on the second production of the country's labor. Here we 
 see that there is advanced to the people, through the export- 
 ing merchants in the first instance, a credit in Bank paper 
 equivalent to cash, to the whole extent of the surplus and 
 vendible products of their labor; and an other credit to the 
 same people, through their importing merchants for what they 
 have purchased; and this credit is extended till the very 
 period when the exporting merchants again purchase the 
 annual product, when it is collected, but immediately reissued 
 in the purchase of new Bills, and again thrown back by the 
 trader upon the people in the purchase of the products of 
 labor, and this 'without increasing circulation, but limiting it, 
 and accommodating it exactly to the prices which the laws of 
 supply and demand affix to the productions of industry. This, 
 in the judgment of the committee, is sound banking, and is 
 evidently exposed to no dangers in the ordinary course of 
 human transactions. 
 
 Let us examine the other mode and see whether it affords 
 really any increased facilities to industry. The circulation is 
 thrown out in the same way, the proceeds of the bills are in- 
 vested in accommodation paper, yielding an interest to the 
 Bank, and including the premiums upon exchange. The 
 
82 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 season of the year comes round for a new sale of Bills; the 
 Bank again purchases, but not having drawn in her former 
 issues, which are represented by the accommodation paper at 
 interest, the next issue is a clear addition to the circulation 
 without adding to the amount of property circulated, (which 
 is the only real capital in the matter,) or affording any 
 additional aid to the business of the country. Let this ope- 
 ration be repeated several times, and what is its effect. The 
 increased circulation exhibits itself in the high prices of every 
 thing ; prices, however, which are not favorable to production, 
 (for exportation diminishes under them,) but which necessarily 
 swell the importations. The debts are increased, the means 
 diminished. The Bank has not exchange, it rises, the com- 
 mercial debt presses. The Banks can not relieve the commu- 
 nity, nor the community the Banks. They are both in debt. 
 The whole pressure both of the commercial and Bank debt 
 falls, with combined and horrid force, upon the community. 
 Suspension is of course the consequence. Money was never 
 known so scarce, though we have just seen that the amount 
 was excessive. How is this paradox to be explained? It was 
 not money, it was credit. The debt to be paid represents its 
 amount, but the value is altered and cut down just in propor- 
 tion to the excess committed. A Bank note for flOO will 
 not pay a foreign debt of $100. The excess has caused 
 depreciation, and the power of the money to pay debts is 
 diminished in proportion. Quantity is squared to value, and 
 nominal abundance is the cause of real scarcity. And this 
 the Committee call unsound banking. 
 
 In illustration of their idea, that the business may be large 
 and the circulation small, the Committee beg leave to refer to 
 one undoubted but pregnant fact. The Bank of the United 
 States conducted the whole foreign and domestic Exchanges 
 of the Union, dealt largely in discounts, collected and dis- 
 bursed the whole National Revenue, paid the annual interest 
 and gradually sank the principal of the public debt, and upon 
 a circulation of twenty-one millions of dollars, with a capital 
 of thirty-five millions. Just before the last suspension of 
 
ON BANKS. 83 
 
 specie payments, the Bank circulation in the United States 
 amounted to nearly two hundred millions. Whatever inference 
 may be drawn from them, the facts are undoubted. The 
 Committee believe that they demonstrate that circulation is 
 efficient in proportion to its activity, and that its bulk is 
 diminished in the same proportion. The Banks in Kentucky 
 have not, the Committee know they have not, committed such 
 wild excesses as have been here described. The disastrous 
 failures in the South bore heavily on the Bill line, particularly 
 in the Bank of Kentucky in 1837. The apparent increase of 
 her Discount line was produced in this way. She forbore to 
 press her customers to instant bankruptcy, but gave them 
 breathing time. A strong constitution, — and our Banks are 
 strong — may bear occasional excesses and recover, but beware 
 of repetitions. Their frequent recurrence entails disease, 
 prostra-tion, madness and death. With, these suggestions the 
 Committee quit the subject, hoping that the Banks, guided 
 by their own good sense and integrity, may, in pursuance of 
 principles which they well understand, lend their whole policy 
 and means to bring about the earliest possible resumption, 
 consistent with the steady maintenance, in future, of cash 
 payment. 
 
84 T. F. MAESHALL.* 
 
 LETTERS TO THE EDITORS OF THE FRANKFORT COMMON- 
 WEALTH, 
 
 CONTAINING THE AKQCMENT IN FAVOR OF THE CONSTITrTIONALITT OF THE LAW 
 OF 1833, "PROHIBITING THE IMPORTATION OF SIAVBS INTO THIS COMMON- 
 WEALTH," AND ALSO DEFENDING THE PKOPBIETT AND POLICY OF THAT LAW, 
 IN REPLY TO A PAMPHLET OP ROBERT WICKLIFFE, SEN., AND TO THE VIEWS 
 TAKEN BY OTHER ENEMIES OF THE LAW. 
 
 3sro. I. 
 
 The objections to the law of 1833, ^^prohibiting the importation of Slaves into this 
 State,' considered with reference to the Constitution of Kentucky. 
 
 Robert Wickltffe delivered a speech in Lexington, Kentucky, on the 10th 
 of August, 1840, in oppoaition to the law of 1833. The speech was soon 
 after issued in a pamphlet, and ettensively circulated. Mr. Marshall 
 was one of the ablest and most determined advocates of the law, and 
 consequently came in for a large share of the animadversions to its friends 
 contained in Mr. Wickliffe's pamphlet. On the convention of the ensuing 
 State Legislature, strong efforts were made for the repeal of the law, and 
 Mr. Wickliffe's statements influentially used by its enemies to consummate 
 that end. As a, friend to the law, and to counteract any influences preju- 
 dicial to it contained in the arguments of Mr. Wickliffe, and to set himself 
 right, Mr. Marshall, in December, published in some letters to the 
 Frankfort Commonwealth, the following triumphant vindication. They 
 are written with a diamond pen, and show, in every line, the research, 
 analysis and genius of the author. No abler arguments have ever been 
 adduced, in the whole range of excited controversy, upon the slavery 
 question. 
 
 A PAMPHLET containing tliirty-six pages, and purporting to 
 te a speech delivered by Robert Wiclvliffe in the courthouse, 
 in Lexington, on the 10th August, in reference to what is 
 termed in the title page the " Negro Law," made its appear- 
 ance some time ago. It has provoked replies from two gen- 
 tlemen, who were particularly implicated by the speech, and 
 
ON SLAVERY. 85 
 
 produced very considerable excitement in the county of Fay- 
 ette. The debate which took place in Lexington between one 
 of the gentlemen referred to, and the author of the pamphlet, 
 has been widely circulated, and has attracted and continues 
 to attract general attention. The effort now making in the 
 Legislature to repeal what Mr. Wickliffe is pleased to term 
 the "Negro Law," is calculated to deepen and extend the 
 interest occasioned by the dispute. No connection which I 
 may have had with the passage of the obnoxious law, and no 
 resistance which I may have afforded to its repeal, when I 
 was honored with a seat in the Legislative councils of the 
 State, would have induced me to enter upon the argument in 
 this form. But the very extraordinary view taken by Mr. 
 Wickliffe of the law which he assails, the charges hurled upon 
 the original authors, and present friends, of the measure, and 
 the repeated allusions to myself personally, and the connec- 
 tion sought to be established between those upon whose mo- 
 tives and principles he is severe almost to rancor, and myself, 
 coupled with the rank, authority, influence and position of the 
 Senator from Fayette, have determined me to present my own 
 reasons for the course which I have pursued in relation to the 
 law of 1832-3, prohibiting the importation of slaves into this 
 State. I was a member of the House of Representatives the 
 session in which it passed, I have uniformly voted against its 
 repeal, and last year, for the first time, pending its discussion, 
 took occasion to present the argument which had long since 
 satisfied my own mind. Nothing which Mr. Wickliffe has 
 brought forward has wrought any change in my opinions, 
 though with all deference and without the slightest intended 
 disrespect, I am constrained to say, he has, in my judgment, 
 misconstrued the law as widely as he has mistaken the mo- 
 tives of its friends. It is a misfortune, that a question of 
 such grave importance as the one under discussion, should be 
 mixed up with feelings of personal bitterness, and treated with 
 reference to prejudices past or present, local or political. That 
 it has been so treated, any man will be satisfied who will take 
 the trouble to read Mr. W.'s speech. It is too long to quote 
 
86 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 at large, but that my position in relation to it may be under- 
 stood, I will attempt a synopsis in brief. Mr. W. thinks that 
 the British government, from motives of policy, and to break 
 down the growth and culture of cotton in the United States, 
 have determined upon the abolition of slavery in America; 
 that a fanatical sect, known technically as "Abolitionists" in 
 the Northern States, are connected with the British govern- 
 ment', in this design, and are employed as the agents to effect 
 it. The reasoning which establishes this charge upon the 
 British government, is curious enough — see p. 21-2 — but the 
 consideration of it is aside from my present purpose. The 
 law of 1832-3, is part and parcel of the system of the Abo- 
 litionists, which is to find its consummation in the severance 
 of Kentucky from the Southern slave States by diminishing 
 the number of slaves here, increasing the proportion of non- 
 slaveholders and free laborers, forcing the entire slave popu- 
 lation upon the " southern angle," and, finally, terminating 
 slavery there by the murder of the whole white race. As 
 part, and a very necessary part, of this most iniquitous 
 scheme, planned by domestic traitors and a foreign rival and 
 enemy, the first great step in Kentucky is to prostrate Mr. 
 Wickliffe and his family, from his known hostility to Aboli- 
 tionists, and his quick discernment of their "traps" and plans, 
 rendered peculiarly odious, — that a gentleman from Wood- 
 ford had shown himself as an auxiliary of this plan and an 
 abettor of the conspiracy. Mr. W. then denounces the law 
 as a flagrant and palpable violation of the organic law of the 
 Commonwealth, and a disgrace to the statute book — recom- 
 mends its instant repeal — a convention of the slave States, 
 the mutual removal of all impediments to the free circulation 
 of slave property, and the equal diffusion of that class of 
 population throughout; and furthermore, that all and sundi-y 
 persons who look to the extinction of slavery in any way, or at 
 any time, are Abolitionists, and should be treated as public 
 enemies. To find myself thus connected will, I hope, be a 
 sufficient apology for the course I pursue. I mean not to be 
 implicated upon this subject with the opinions of any man 
 
ON SLAVERY. 87 
 
 living or dea,d ; nor do I mean to be involved in charges wild 
 as these", without responding in my own proper person at the 
 bar of public opinion ; I say that I mean not to be implicated 
 in any man's opinions. How far the charges which Mr. W. 
 has piled upon others are^ust, it is not for me to determine. 
 The chief personages upon whom he rests the origination of 
 this law, are the Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge and John Green. 
 The former gentleman has answered for himself; the voice of 
 the latter has been silenced by death. With the personal 
 altercation between Messrs. Breckinridge and WicklifFe, I have 
 nothing to do. Whatever may be the merits of that contro- 
 versy in other respects, Mr. B. has at "least acquitted, not 
 only himself, but his deceased friend of the guilt, if guilt there 
 be, in the authorship of this law. So far from Green's hav- 
 ing originated the bill in the lower house, so far from its 
 having been urged through the Senate late in the session, 
 without the Senate being apprised of its contents, as charged 
 by Mr. W. in his pamphlet, pa.ge 20, the Journal of the 
 Senate shows that the bill originated in that body ; that it 
 was reported by three of the best lawyers in the State, Ows- 
 ley, Thornton and Guthrie. That four days intervened be- 
 tween the reference of the leave to those gentlemen and the 
 report of the bill. Four days more elapsed, and the bill was 
 read a second time and referred to a committee of the whole. 
 Three days after, it was acted on in committee of the whole, 
 reported to the House, engrossed, and read a third time. The 
 day after, being the 15th January, the bill was passed by a 
 vote of 23 to 12, Mr. Wickliffe himself present, and voting 
 for it. It would seem, too, from the Journals, that the Sena- 
 tor from Fayette was present at every session of the Senate 
 at which this bill was acted on, save one. Thus it appears, 
 that in the Senate where this bill originated, it went through 
 its regular course, was acted upon with great deliberation, was 
 referred first to the ablest lawyers, and afterward to a com- 
 mittee of the whole, and passed, not at the end, but about 
 the middle of the session. I refer to these things not for the 
 purpose of involving Mr. Wickliffe in contradiction or incon- 
 
88 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 sistency; whether his memory was at fault, or in what way 
 his statements are found to be so utterly at war with the 
 record, is a matter of no importance to me, to the question, 
 or to the country. I do it that I may divest the law of that 
 odium which is attempted to be thrown upon it in advance of 
 any examination, by charging it upon those whose opinions 
 are supposed, or at least represented, as leaning to modern 
 abolitionism. I do it to acquit the Senate of 1833 of the 
 gross negligence of passing a law of this consequence, without 
 examination, a law revolutionizing, or at least determining the 
 policy of the State upon one of the most deeply important 
 and agitating of all the subjects of legislation. I do it that 
 this law may be discussed upon its own provisions and merits, 
 as a question of State, and in its relations to the public in- 
 terest, and to the Constitution of the country, without refer- 
 ence to persons or prejudices with whom and which it has in 
 truth not the most remote connection. 
 
 Pending the effort to repeal the statute under consideration, 
 during the last session of the Greneral Assembly, it was argued 
 that the law was against the Constitution of Kentucky, and 
 against the Constitution of the United States. I propose to 
 state the argument then used on both points and to give the 
 answer. The objections urged by Mr. Wickliffe were not pre- 
 sented in the debate in the House of Representatives ; they 
 appear to me, however, to present no difficulty, and shall be 
 considered in their turn. The statute imposes a penalty of 
 six hundred dollars, recoverable by indictment or an action of 
 debt, in the name of the Commonwealth, in any circuit court 
 of the county where the offender may be found, upon any 
 person who shall thereafter import into the Commonwealth 
 any slave or slaves, or who shall buy or sell, or shall con- 
 tract for the sale or purchase, for a longer term than one 
 year, of any such slave, knowing the same to be imported; 
 the penalty to accrue upon each slave, so imported, sold or 
 bought, etc. That emigrants to this State, bringing with them 
 any persons deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the 
 United States, are exempted from the penalties of the statute, 
 
ON SLAVERY. 89 
 
 as to such persons so brought ; provided that, within sixty 
 days after their arrival, such emigrant, before some justice of 
 the peace, shall have taken the following oath or affirmation : 
 " I do solemnly swear, or a.ffirm, that ihy removal to the State 
 of Kentucky was with intention of becoming a citizen thereof, 
 and that I have brought with me no slave or slaves, with the 
 intention of selling them : so help me God." And provided 
 that, within thirty days thereafter, such person shall have had 
 the oath recorded in the office of the court of the county 
 where it was taken. Travelers, sojourners, and transient 
 persons, bringing slaves for the purpose of necessary attend- 
 ance, are also exempted. Residents of the State, importing 
 slaves to which they derive title, by will, descent, distribution 
 or marriage, or gift in consideration of marriage, and such 
 citizens of the State as may (having slaves in their possession, 
 at the time of the hiring) have hired their slaves to any per- 
 son out of the State, are also exempted. Before I proceed to 
 consider the main question of constitutional power in the gov- 
 ernment to enact this law, I beg leave to notice a construction 
 given to it by Mr. Wickliffe, which, to say the least, is most 
 extraordinary. He argues, that every bringing in of a slave 
 is an importation within the meaning of the act, save only in 
 the cases enumerated ; and hence, citizens who may have gone 
 out of the State on business, without a change of residence, 
 members of Congress, etc., who may have taken a slave or 
 slaves with them, for the purpose of attendance, upon th^r 
 return with their servants, are exposed to the penalties of the 
 statute. (See p. 10.) It would be as rational to treat the 
 citizen, so returning, as an emigrant, and to consider his tem- 
 porary absence as depriving him of his residence and his fran- 
 chises, as to consider the slave who accompanied him as an 
 importation from abroad. When a citizen hires his slave 
 abroad, the residence of the slave is changed, a temporary 
 ownership is established in him out of the State, and it was 
 therefore necessary for the laws to provide for this case. A 
 provision to meet the cases put by Mr. W. would have been 
 superfluous and idle. In all those cases, the " Domicil," as it 
 
90 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 is termed in law, is not changed, and the domicil of the slave 
 follows that of the master. " If a person go on a voyage 
 to sea, or to a foreign country for health or pleasure, or busi- 
 ness of a temporary nature, with an intention to return, such 
 transitory residence does not constitute a new domicil, or 
 amount to an abandonment of the old one." Story (Conflict 
 of Laws, p. 42, and p. 45), after remarking that infants and 
 married women follow the domicil of the father or husband, 
 the same author adds : " This results from the general princi- 
 ple that a person, who is under the power and authority of 
 an other, possesses no right to choose a domicil." A fugitive 
 slave, therefore, brought back into the country, or slaves in 
 attendance upon their master in a temporary absence, can not, 
 in law, be said to be imported into a country from which, in 
 law, as to all the purposes of domicil or residence, they were 
 never absent. It is thus seen, that the rights of masters of 
 slaves within the Commonwealth, are either by direct provi- 
 sion or undeniable construction completely guarded, so long as 
 the ownership continues. But the constitutional question re- 
 curs. Has this government the power to prohibit the im- 
 portation of slaves from other States or countries into this 
 Commonwealth, under the exceptions contained in this statute ? 
 I will consider this question first in reference to the Constitu- 
 tion of Kentucky. The first section, article seventh of that 
 instrument, contains all that relates to this subject, and is as 
 fdlows : " The General Assembly shall have no power to pass 
 laws for the emancipation of slaves, without the consent of 
 their owners, or without paying their owners, previous to such 
 emancipation, a full equivalent in money, for the slaves so 
 emancipated. They shall have no power to prevent emigrants 
 to this State from bringing with them such persons as are 
 deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States, 
 so long as any person of the same age or description shall be 
 continued in slavery by the laws of this State. They shall 
 pass laws to permit the owners of slaves to emancipate them, 
 saving the rights of creditors, and preventing them from 
 becoming a charge to any county in this Commonwealth. 
 
ON SLAVERY. 
 
 91 
 
 They sliall have full power to prevant slaves being brought 
 into this State as merchandize. They shall have full power 
 to prevent any slaves being brought into this State from a 
 foreign country, and to prevent those from being brought into 
 this State, who have been, since the first day of January, one 
 •thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, or may hereafter be 
 imported into any of the United States from a foreign coun- 
 try." The residue of the section is not material to the ques- 
 tion. It was argued in the House of Bepresentatives, that 
 this Constitution recognized the relation of slavery as it ex- 
 isted at the time of its adoption. That by such recognition, 
 the rights of individuals, as then secured by law, are rendered 
 inviolable by the government, save in those cases where there 
 is an express grant of power to the Legislature, and that the 
 power is limited by the precise terms of the grant. That 
 when this Constitution was adopted, every individual had the 
 right to import slaves from other States for their own use, 
 and that the same class or description of persons held to 
 slavery in other States, as were held in slavery by the laws 
 of this State, were thus far recognized as slaves by our laws. 
 That the only powers granted to the government to interfere 
 with these preexisting rights of the citizen are : " They shall 
 have full power to prevent the importation of slaves as mer- 
 chandize, and they may prevent the importation of slaves from 
 a foreign country, or of those who have been brought into the 
 United States since 1789, or of those who may hereafter be 
 brought into the United States." 
 
 That these express grants of power, of themselves, prove 
 that, in the view of the framers of the constitution, the power 
 would not have existed without the grant, otherwise they are 
 nugatory and superfluous. That the same article existed in 
 the first Constitution of Kentucky, and that the practice of 
 the government under that, and under the present, down to 
 the passage of the act of 1833, demonstrates that this was 
 the construction put upon it by the government. That the 
 act of 1794, under the former constitution, and the act of 
 1815, under the present, prohibiting the importation of slaves, 
 
92 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 are both confined to the cases specified in the article quoted, 
 to wit: the case of merchandize, and the importation from 
 foreign countries. I state the argument to the best of my 
 recollection, and my attention was very particularly directed 
 to it. It is, in my judgment, radically defective in every 
 particular. In the first place, the nature and ofiBce of the 
 State Constitution are misconceived. It did not create a 
 government of enumerated powers. "The legislative power 
 of this Commonwealth shall be vested in two distinct branches ; 
 the one to be styled the House of Kepresentatives, and the 
 other the Senate, and both together the General Assembly of 
 the Commonwealth of Kentucky," — article 2d, section 1st. 
 Here is a general grant of the power to make laws, and there 
 follows no specification either of particular laws, or of the 
 general subjects upon which the power may be exercised. 
 The General Assembly represent the community, and are 
 armed with the whole force which that community certainly 
 possessed for its own government, unless there be exceptions 
 and reservations found in the charter itself. 
 
 In our mixed system of government, this distinction exists 
 between the State and National Governments. The former 
 possesses all power which is not expressly denied. The latter 
 is strictly a government of enumerated powers, and can claim 
 or exercise none which are not expressly granted. It is 
 paramount, however, and contains not only specific grants to 
 the general government, but prohibitions to the States. With 
 reference to an act of Congress, therefore, the question is, 
 has the power been granted ? With reference to an act of the 
 State Legislature, the question is, has the power been denied, 
 either by the State Constitution, or that of the Union? I 
 have already quoted the grant of legislative power from the 
 State Constitution, and shown it to be general and unlimited: 
 the article under consideration, and the 10th article, are ex- 
 ceptions out of the general power so granted. That we may 
 comprehend the distinction clearly, let us examine the grant 
 of power in the Federal Constitution. "All legislative powers 
 herein granted^ shall be vested in a Congress of the United 
 
ON SLAVERY. 93 
 
 States, ■which shall consist," etc. — article 1, section 1, Consti- 
 tution of the United States; and in the 8th section of the 
 same article, "the Congress shall have power to lay and 
 collect taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce," etc., with a 
 long list of specifications of the subjects upon which the power 
 so granted may be exercised. When we examine the 1st 
 section of the 7th article of the State Constitution, in relation 
 to slaves, altogether, it is perfectly apparent, that the prin- 
 ciples I have laid down, and the distinction I have taken, are 
 ' entirely applicable to it, and were understood perfectly by 
 the framers. And first, it is prohibitory and restrains the 
 legislative power, which would have been unnecessary, unless 
 the framers had understood that the power prohibited, would 
 have existed without the prohibition, and if it would, it must 
 have been under the general grant of legislative power, for I 
 have shown that there is no enumeration of specified powers 
 in the instrument. "The General Assembly shall have no 
 power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves," etc. 
 "They shall have no power to prevent emigrants to this 
 State from bringing with them, such persons as are deemed 
 slaves, by the laws of, any one of the United States, so long 
 as any person of the same age," etc. Now these are prohibi- 
 tions, and so far as I have quoted them, are absolute and 
 without exception. They show, however, that, but for this 
 article, the General Assembly would have had the power both 
 to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the con- 
 sent of the owner, and to prohibit their introduction by 
 emigrants. Then follow the grants of power which are 
 assumed in the argument I am answering, as containing all 
 the authority which the Legislature has over the subject. I 
 have already shown the prohibitions so far as quoted, to be 
 absolute. Now what is the effect, and what the true design 
 of the positive grants? "They shall pass laws to permit the 
 owners of slaves to emancipate them." What is this, but an 
 exception, or modification, or limitation upon the first pro- 
 hibitory clause, in which the General Assembly are forbidden 
 to pass laws emancipating, etc.? Now take them together, and 
 
94 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 it is to be remarked, that as the subject of emancipation is 
 the first in the order of prohibitions, so this authority to pass 
 laws for emancipating is the first in the order of express 
 grants. Now take them together, as they are connected, both 
 by the order in which they stand, and the subject matter to 
 which they relate, and what is the fair and obvious construc- 
 tion ? Not that the Legislature would not have had the power 
 to authorize masters to emancipate their slaves, if the whole 
 section had been wanting to the constitution, most certainly 
 not. But that notwithstanding the foregoing clause pro- 
 hibiting them from passing laws for the emancipation of 
 slaves, without consent of the owners, they may, nay they 
 shall (the clause is imperative), pass laws to permit the owners 
 of slaves to emancipate them. The second prohibition is, 
 "they shall have no power to prevent emigrants," etc., and 
 standing alone, as I have before observed, it is absolute, and 
 without some exception or modification, emigrants to the 
 State might bring as many slaves as they chose, and for any 
 purpose; and this power in the emigrant is most clearly de- 
 rived from the prohibition to the government in the clause 
 just cited. Now the second grant of power, most clearly 
 relates to this prohibition, and modifies it. "They shall have 
 full power to prevent slaves being brought to this State as 
 merchandize." This grant by no means limits the power of 
 the Legislature over importation, to the case of merchandize, 
 but extends their power even over emigrants upon this sub- 
 ject, notwithstanding the foregoing prohibition in their favor. 
 And so with all the rest. The Legislature have power to 
 prevent even emigrants from bringing in slaves from foreign 
 countries, or such as have been brought from foreign coun- 
 tries since 1789, or as merchandize. They have this power 
 over all others, without the specific grant, because it comes 
 under the general idea of legislative authority, they would 
 not have had it over emigrants without the specific grant, 
 because of the absolute prohibition in the foregoing clause. 
 They can not prohibit emigrants from bringing slaves for 
 their own use, and with no intention to sell, because upon 
 
ON SLAVEBY. 95 
 
 this point they are expressly restrained. They can prohibit 
 all others from ■ importing for any purpose or on any account, 
 because, as to all others, the constitution is silent. This is 
 the plain and natural construction of the section, and squares 
 with and preserves the true, well known and acknowledged 
 theory of our government. If the provisions of the act of 
 1833, fall naturally under the head of legislative power, and 
 they are not expressly prohibited by the Constitution of 
 Kentucky, so far as that is concerned, they are constitutional. 
 We have seen that they are not expressly prohibited, and it 
 will scarcely be contended that the prohibition of the migra- 
 tion of persons or importation of property into any particular 
 country, belong either to the Judicial or Executive authority,, 
 and if not, and there be any such politi<;al power known to 
 government at all, it must be legislative, there being but the 
 three departments. 
 
 The argument which I have already noticed, limits the 
 power of the government, simply to the prohibition of the 
 importation of slaves as merchandize, but admits that that 
 power extends to emigrants, claiming for the citizen the con- 
 stitutional right to import slaves for his own use. That por- 
 tion of the law which relates to emigrants, it admits to be 
 constitutional, but rejects that portion which relates to im- 
 portation in any other way. Mr. Wickliflfe rests his consti- 
 tutional objections to the act, most especially upon that por- 
 tion of it which applies to emigrants. I will take the liberty 
 to quote the passage. The high professional standing of that 
 gentleman, and the intimate acquaintance which he is sup- 
 posed to have with all subjects connected with jurisprudence, 
 render it proper that he should receive a detailed and partic- 
 ular answer. In the ninth page of his printed speech, he 
 employs the following language after quoting the law, and the 
 section of the constitution in relation to emigrants : 
 
 "And here I might defy any lawyer or sensible man liv- 
 ing, to put his hand on his heart and say that the constitu- 
 tion is not plainly, obviously and palpably violated. The con- 
 stitution says the Legislature shall have no power to prevent 
 
96 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 emigrants from bringing slaves with them. It does not 
 merely restrain or abridge the power of legislation over the 
 subject, but declares that the Legislature shall have no power 
 over the rights of the emigrants to come freely with their 
 slaves, whether he intends to be a citizen or not — whether he 
 be an alien or denizen. Our constitution opens the bosom of 
 our country to him, and invites him to Come freely, and at 
 his will and pleasure settle among us, bringing with him his 
 slaves. And yet this act requires an odious test oath. It 
 requires the emigrant to swear that he does not intend to« 
 sell any one of his slaves — it requires him to swear that he 
 intends to become a citizen although he may be an -alien, and 
 may never intend to abjure the allegiance he owes the sove- 
 reign he was born under. He may be a citizen of an other 
 'State, and not wish to forfeit or abjure his citizenship in such 
 State, and' still desire to live among us to educate his child- 
 ren, or for the health of his family, or for agricultural, mer- 
 cantile or other purposes, and the free right to settle thus 
 among us, is guaranteed by the constitution, but by this act 
 is utterly subverted: thousands of aliens that never intended 
 to be any thing else but aliens, are settled in every portion 
 of the United States." "These frequently change their resi- 
 dence, and are invited by the constitution to settle among us, 
 to improve the arts and sciences, or the face of the country 
 by the application of their talents and capital. Such are for 
 ever driven from the country if this act is suffered to exist." 
 This last passage contrasts singularly enough with aa other, 
 on the 15th page, where we are told that the effect of this 
 law will be to diminish the number of slaves in the country; 
 and, as a natural consequence, the country will be overrun 
 with "mechanics from Europe and the free States," as 
 assuredly as ever Goths and Vandals overran Rome. This 
 strange man argues on one page that the effect of the law is 
 to exclude the talents, skill, and capital of aliens wishing to 
 engage in agriculture, commerce, or other pursuits, and then, 
 that unless repealed, the country will be overrun with such. 
 The passage which I have just quoted at large, remains, how- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 97 
 
 ever, to be considered. It may be remarked first, that as to 
 persons who are really emigrants to this State, Mr. Wickliffe 
 has either misunderstood or misrepresents the Constitution of 
 the State, when he says, the "Legislature have no power to 
 prevent emigrants from bringing slaves with them." The 
 constitution, as has been before shown, contains this grant. 
 " They (the General Assembly) shall have full power to pre- 
 vent slaves being brought into the State as merchandize." 
 There is no exception to this; the expression is plenary and 
 unreserved. Iji considering the oath as applicable either to 
 aliens or citizens of other States, coming to this, without any 
 view to settle, he has certainly mistaken both the legal and 
 popular idea of emigrant. 
 
 None but emigrants to this State who bring slaves with 
 them are required to take this oath. None but emigrants to 
 this State are protected by the constitution. 
 
 In what sense cam a foreigner, or the citizen of an other 
 State, coming to Kentucky with no view to settle or become 
 a citizen thereof, be said to be, an emigrant to this State? In 
 what sense can persons so situated be said to be protected by 
 the constitution? An emigrant from one country to an other 
 is a person, who removes himself, his property and family, 
 from the jurisdiction, the government, the rights and fran- 
 chises of one country or State to an other, with a view to 
 permanent settlement and citizenship. Story, Conflict of 
 Laws, page 39, thus defines domicil: "In a strict and legal 
 sense, that is properly the domicil of a person, where he has 
 his true, fixed, and permanent home, and principal establish- 
 ment, and to which, when ever he is absent, he has the inten- 
 tion of returning,, (animus revertendi.)" Can an American 
 gentlemen, residing temporarily in Great Britain, with the 
 fixed purpose of returning to his own country at some period, 
 and with no intention whatever, of becoming a British sub- 
 ject, be said with any propriety, either in a legal or popular 
 sense, to be an emigrant to Great Britain? Can "the thou- 
 sands of aliens in the United States, who never intend to be 
 any thing else than aliens," claim the benefit of any law in 
 
98 T. F. MAESI-IALL. 
 
 any State, -which, from its clear letter, and even clearer spirit, 
 was intended to swell the number of citizens, and to invite 
 emigration, by conferring upon emigrants constitutional ex- 
 emptions from the legislative power which is not conferred 
 upon the existing citizens of the State? Can it be conceived 
 that the Constitution of Kentucky, intended to confer upon a 
 foreigner, always intending to remain a foreigner, who comes 
 into the State, a privilege which is not reserved to a citizen 
 of the State ? 
 
 The Constitution most clearly intended to permit citizens 
 from the slave States, desiring to remove to Kentucky, to 
 bring their slaves along with them for their own use ; and the 
 clause was evidently inserted, that bona fide emigration, espe- 
 cially from the parent State, might not be checked. But the 
 Constitution as clearly authorized the Legislature to prohibit 
 any one under cover of the privilege granted to " emigrants 
 to this State " from bringing in slaves as merchandize, or with 
 the intent to sell, which is the same thing. If, then, the 
 Legislature have the power to prohibit any one to assume the 
 character of an emigrant, who is not so in reality, and under 
 this cover to introduce slaves into the Commonwealth from 
 abroad, and to prohibit even emigrants from introducing them 
 as merchandize, who shall limit the government in its choice 
 of the means by which this constitutional end is to be efifected ? 
 Is there any thing unconstitutional, in ascertaining the true 
 character and intent of the party, by his own oath or affirma- 
 tion? Is it not the easiest and most liberal course toward 
 the party himself? If the party be no emigrant to the State, 
 the Constitution does not protect him. If he bring slaves 
 with intent to sell, it does not protect him ; the law refers the 
 extent of his protection to his own affirmation. Is there any 
 right more sacred than the right of suffrage under the Con- 
 stitution? Will any man contend that the oath administered 
 at the polls, as to the party's qualification, and without which, 
 if demanded, the right can not be exercised, whether the 
 qualification exist or not — will any man contend that this is 
 unconstitutional ? Is there any thing of more importance to 
 
ON SLAVERY. 99 
 
 genius and ambition than the right to pursue the honorable 
 and lucrative profession of the law, the broadest and most 
 open path known in our country to extended fame and politi- 
 cal distinction? Will any man contend that it is unconstitu- 
 tional to ascertain the legal qualification by the oath of the 
 party ? Is a government bound in every or in any instance 
 where a right either constitutional or legal exists, coupled 
 with a qualification, to permit the exercise of the right, with- 
 out ascertaining the qualification in any manner in the first 
 instance ? Most clearly we think not. In relation to this 
 " odious and unconstitutional test oath," a word or two more 
 and I am done for the present. Mr. Wickliffe seems not to 
 be aware of its antiquity and its pedigree. In 1778, there 
 was an act passed by Virginia, " To prevent the farther im- 
 portation of slaves." The first, second, and third sections of 
 that act, prohibit the importation of slaves by sea or land, or 
 the sale or purchase of slaves, so imported, under the penalty 
 of one thousand pounds upon the importer, and five hundred 
 pounds upon the purchaser, and moreover, that tvery slave im- 
 ported contrary to the act shall he free. Mr. W. would surely 
 pronounce Virginia the very mother of abolitionism. But the 
 fourth section I will give entire. 
 
 Section 4. "Provided, always, that this act shall not be-' 
 construed to extend to those who may incline to remove from 
 any of the United States and become citizens of this, provided 
 that, within ten days after their removal into the same, they 
 take the following oath before some magistrate of the Com- 
 monwealth: I, A B, do swear, that my removal to the State 
 of Virginia was with no intention to evade the act for pre- 
 venting the further importation of slaves within this Common- 
 wealth, nor have I brought with me, or will cause to be brought, 
 any slaves, with an intent of selling them, nor have any of 
 the slaves now in my possession been imported from Africa or 
 any of the West India islands, since the first day of Novem- 
 ber, 1 778 : so help me God." See Litt. Laws of Ky., vol. 1, 
 p. 241. 
 
 Virginia perceiving too late the fatal error of that colonial 
 
100 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 system, which declared, " that all persons imported into Vir- 
 ginia, not being christians in .their native country, except 
 Turks and Moors, in amity with his Majesty, should be ac- 
 counted slaves." See Littell, same page — almost immediately 
 upon her becoming an independent State, and long before 
 that independence was acknowledged, she endeavored to arrest 
 this tremendous evil. It will be perceived that she w«nt a 
 long cast beyond the law of 1833 : one thousand pounds 
 penalty, and freedom to the slave. In 1815, the Legislature 
 of Kentucky passed a law upon the subject of the importation 
 of slaves. By the third section of this act, it is provided, 
 " That no defendant, or defendants, who have been a resident 
 or residents of any other State or territory of the United 
 States, and shall remove to this State, to reside therein, and 
 bring with him, her, or them, any slave or slaves, shall be 
 discharged or acquitted from the pains and penalties inflicted 
 by this act, unless he, she, or they, can satisfactorily prove, 
 by competent legal evidence, that within sixty days after his, 
 her or their arrival in the Commonwealth, he, she, or they, 
 have taken the following oath or affirmation, before some jus- 
 tice of the peace, to wit : I, A B, do swear, or affirm, that my 
 removal to the State of Kentucky was with an intention to 
 become a citizen thereof, and that I have brought with me no 
 slave or slaves, and will bring no slave or' slaves to this State 
 with intent of selling them." 
 
 This oath is identical with the one prescribed by the law 
 of 1833, except that it compels the emigrant to swear, pros- 
 pectively, which the latter law does not. Thus am I fortified 
 by the Virginia and Kentucky Legislatures, long prior to 
 1833, in the opinion that this oath does not abridge or a£Fect 
 the emigrants' rights. 
 
 In an other number, if the public will bear with me so far, 
 I will consider the objections to this law, growing out of the 
 Constitution of the United States, and review some of the 
 grounds which, in my judgment, render it peculiarly unwise 
 to change the policy of the State upon this subject, in the 
 present circumstances of the country. 
 
ON SLAVEEY. 101 
 
 3SrO. II. 
 
 Farther olgeciiotis considered in reference to the Constitution of the United States. 
 
 Before I proceed to notice the objection to the law drawn 
 from the Constitution of the United States, as urged with 
 great force last winter in the House of Representatives, there 
 is one made by Mr. WicklifFe, p. 23, which, from its singu- 
 larity, requires a moment's attention. That gentleman imag- 
 ines that the statute is in conflict with the second section, 
 first clause, article fourth, of the Constitution. The clause is 
 this : " The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all 
 privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." 
 The statute prohibits all persons from importing slaves into 
 this Commonwealth, under a certain penalty. So far every 
 human being stands upon the same footing. But there is an 
 exception in favor of emigrants from other States, who are 
 permitted to do what our own citizens are not ; so that, instead 
 of the law excluding citizens from other States from a privi- 
 lege enjoyed by our own, in this instance it allows a privilege 
 and immunity to them which is denied to our own. This, 
 among a thousand others, is given, not as an argument to be 
 answered, but as a specimen of the unfairness with which the 
 whole subject is treated in the pamphlet referred to. Here 
 are Mr. W.'s own words : " This act, and your laws, allow 
 to the citizens of Kentucky the power of working their own 
 lands with their slaves, while it refuses the same privileges to 
 the citizens of other States — a right to work their lands in 
 Kentucky with their own slaves." Has a citizen of Kentucky 
 a right -to import slaves with which to work his lands? Has 
 not a citizen' of any other State the right to employ his slaves 
 Tvhich are legally within the Commonwealth in the cultivation 
 of his land ? Where is the difference between them ? Neither 
 can import slaves, unless in the case of emigration, in which 
 the stranger has the advantage. Either can employ slave 
 labor already within the Commonwealth. "By this clause" 
 
102 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 (the first section of the fourth article of the Federal Constitu- 
 tion), says Mr. Wickliffe, p. 23, " no State can grant a privi- 
 lege to its own citizens that is "not immediately common to 
 the citizens of all the States." I have already shown that 
 this law makes no distinction. The citizens of Kentucky have 
 the privilege of voting for members of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives, the Senate, and Governor of the Commonwealth 
 of Kentucky. Quaere, Mr. WickliiFe — Have the citizens of all 
 the States in the Union the right, under this clause, to pour 
 in upon us and decide our elections, and rule our councils? 
 But enough of this. 
 
 The question made last winter, under the Federal Constitu- 
 tion, and pressed with great ingenuity by the gentleman who 
 introduced the bill to repeal, is one of the most momentous 
 which can possibly arise under that instrument. I understand 
 that it will be relied upon again by the friends of repeal, at 
 the present session. It was originally stirred and is vehe- 
 mently pressed by a sect in this Union, with which, of all 
 others, the enemies of this law would choose last to be con- 
 nected in opinion or in effort. I will state the argument fully : 
 it demands the most profound consideration ; and if it be 
 found not susceptible of an answer, and if Mr. Wickliffe be 
 correct as to the views of the free States and the British cabi- 
 net, then wo betide the South. The practical exertion of the 
 power claimed by the argument, must rend this Union in 
 twain, and, in very deed, wrap the entire South in the flames 
 of civil and of servile war. 
 
 The argument is this : Sla.ves are property, and the sub- 
 ject of commerce. The third clause of the eighth section of 
 the first article of the Federal Constitution, gives to Congress 
 "the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and 
 among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." The 
 first clause of the ninth section of the same article contains 
 the following prohibition: "The migration or importation of 
 such persons as any of the States now existing shall think 
 proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress, prior 
 to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight ; but a tax 
 
ON SLAVERY. 103 
 
 or duty may be imposed on such importation not exceeding 
 ten dollars for each person." The latter clause does not con- 
 fer a power ; it prohibits or rather postpones the exercise of 
 one already granted. It recognizes the power to prohibit the 
 importation of persons from abroad. Since the period to 
 which it was postponed, it has been actually exercised. The 
 importation of slaves has been prohibited under the highest 
 of all possible penalties. The African slave trade has been 
 declared piracy. So far as the foreign trafi&c in human flesh 
 is concerned, it is repudiated by the National Government; 
 and, as to that trade, man is considered as incapable of be- 
 coming the property of man; and by the laws of the United 
 States, is not and can not be the subject of barter, or an 
 article of commerce, among the citizens — the laws of any 
 State in this Union, or of any nation upon earth to the con- 
 trary notwithstanding. And whence, proceeds the argument, 
 did Congress derive this power? Not from the section last 
 quoted — that does not confer the power, but suspends its ex- 
 ercise. It is derived from the power to regulate foreign com- 
 merce ; and, but for the foregoing section, might have been 
 exercised upon the first formation of the Government. But 
 the power to regulate commerce between the States is con- 
 ferred in the same clause, and in the same language, with that 
 to regulate commerce with foreign nations. The power, then, 
 by unavoidable inference, over the domestic slave trade, is as 
 complete as that over the foreign. The penalties of this law 
 are in the nature of a duty laid upon an article imported, 
 and, as such, is a regulation of commerce. The second sec- 
 tion of the tenth article provides, among other things, that 
 " no State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any 
 imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be 
 absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws ; and the 
 net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on 
 imports or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the 
 United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revi- 
 sion and control of the Congress." And thus they show that 
 the law is an usurpation of a power which belongs to Con- 
 
104 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 gress, and is in direct conflict with every provision of the 
 section just quoted. 
 
 It will be at once perceived, I think, that this view of the 
 subject Comprehends the whole scheme of the sect called 
 Abolitionists. They press the argument one step further 
 than those who urge it against the law of 1833, and invest 
 Congress with the power not only to regulate, to the exclu- 
 sion of the State authorities, the traffic among the States in 
 slaves, but to declare that the thing itself is not the subject 
 of property, and to abolish the relation of slavery in toto. 
 Admit the premises to-be true, and the analogy to the power 
 -over the foreign trade which has been exercised, and is ac- 
 knowledged to exist, to be complete, and it seems logically 
 impossible to resist the additional inference drawn by them. 
 Under the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, 
 the Congress can make it piracy, punishable with death, in 
 any citizen of the United States, to traffic in human beings. 
 They can send armed vessels to the coast of Africa to seize 
 and confiscate the vessels of American citizens engaged in it. 
 They can declare the person seized or captured, or however 
 acquired by the trader, .being an American citizen, as^ot 
 being the subject of property, to be free. In other words, 
 as to American citizens in the foreign trade, they can abolish 
 slavery. Who can stop the argument? Who can say that 
 the legislative power of the American Congress over its own 
 citizens, in regard to the trade they shall carry on, or as to 
 what in law is susceptible of ownership, is not as complete 
 within as without the United States, when the same power 
 over the same subject is conferred in the same clause, and in 
 the same language over the interior as the exterior relations 
 of the citizens ? Who can say that the Congress can not, with 
 the same penalties, and under the same tremendous sanctions, 
 destroy the relation Of master and slave, within their territo- 
 rial limits, as upon the coast of Africa, or the high seas ? It 
 would seem sufficient, in Kentucky, or at least with the 
 etiemies of the law, to indicate the necessary consequences 
 flowing from what has been deemed the most unanswerable 
 
ON SLAYEEY. 105 
 
 of their arguments. Were the proposition reduced to the form 
 of a resolution, and submitted to the Legislature, surely there 
 would be found no one hardy enough to vote for it. And it 
 would seem scarcely consistent with candor, to urge in argu- 
 ment what is in fact and practice not admitted ,to be true. 
 The proposition, itself is not a mere abstraction to be played 
 with; it is not a logical predicament to be taken up at plea- 
 sure, and employed for purposes of wordy victory, and then 
 thrown aside. Jt is a vast practical question, pregnant with 
 the most stupendous mischiefs, and threatening to rend the 
 frame of the most gigantic empire on earth. Whatever, in 
 other respects, may be the merits of the law of 1833, Ken- 
 tucky should look well to the principles upon which she de- 
 cides the question of power. Believing, as I do, that, upon 
 this subject of domestic slavery, each State is supreme within 
 its own limits; knowing, as I do, that the free States, at the 
 last enumeration, were, in point of numbers, as eight to five, 
 to the slave States, and, of the five, two were slaves, leaving 
 the proportion between the free population as eight to three ; 
 having every reason to believe that the next census will ex- 
 hibit an increased disproportion, I view with horror the sur- 
 render of a principle, even in argument, which will arm a 
 Legislature in which there is so vast a pj-eponderance against 
 us with the power to sweep from existence the peculiar insti- 
 tutions of the South. Kentucky statesmen should look well 
 to the concessions they make, their very words are noted. 
 
 Having stated the argument, as I believe, in its utmost 
 force, I will not evade it by an appeal to our peculiar posi- 
 tion, or to our fears. In the first place it is to be observed, 
 that the power here claimed for Congress, if it exist at all, 
 extends over the free States as well as the slave. If they can 
 interfere with the subject as between Virginia and Kentucky, 
 they can between Virginia and New York, and between 
 Kentucky and Ohio. The Constitution is universal, and the 
 national authority is the same over all the States. If a law 
 of Kentucky, prohibiting a slave to be introduced from 
 Virginia or South Carolina, he an invasion of the national 
 
106 T. ¥. MAESHALL. 
 
 authority, most certainly a law of New York or Ohio, pro* 
 hibiting the introduction of slaves from Maryland or Ken- 
 tucky, is equally so. The power claimed for Congress is 
 general ; if they can prohibit, they can permit. If they allow 
 one portion of American citizens to hold this species of pro- 
 perty, or to pursue this traffic, they can, nay, are bound to 
 extend the privilege to all. The power claimed is exclusive, 
 and the States can not intermeddle with it. Hence, it follows, 
 that the laws of New York and Pennsylvania, abolishing sla- 
 very, and prohibiting persons to be introduced into their 
 r territory, as a subject of sale or of property, are unconstitu- 
 tional. Until Congress abolishes slavery within the United 
 States, every American citizen, whether of Ohio or Kentucky, 
 Virginia or New York, has an equal right to purchase and 
 hold this species as he has every other species of property, 
 and to introduce it, duty free, into every State in the Union. 
 The argument is as fatal to the institutions of the free as of 
 the slave States. Slaves, they say, are property, and pass 
 under the general power to regulate commerce. Grant it for 
 the moment. Beeves, and horses and mules are property, 
 and no duty, impost or tax of any kind shall be levied upon 
 them, whether imported or exported, by the authority of any 
 State. Would not a law of Ohio, declaring that any Ken- 
 tuckian importing a beef into Ohio should lose the ownership, 
 or that any citizen of Ohio purchasing a beef in Kentucky 
 and importing him into Ohio should forfeit his property, would 
 not such a law be unconstitutional ? Are not, then, the laws 
 of Ohio in relation to slaves just as much so? The fallacy 
 of the argument consists in this — that the distinction taken 
 in the Constitution between persons and things is not ob- 
 served. No human being doubts, or has ever doubted, that 
 the laws of Pennsylvania and New York, in relation to sla- 
 very, are strictly and properly within the power of those 
 States, so far as the Federal Constitution is concerned. And 
 yet they would not be so but for this distinction. And most 
 clearly within their own limits, so far as the Federal Consti- 
 tution is concerned, they have no greater authority over this 
 
ON SLAVE EJ. 107 
 
 or any other subject than every other State in the Union. 
 Slavery existed within the United States at the time of tho 
 adoption of the Federal Constitution. It existed by force of 
 the laws of the several States within whose limits it did exist. 
 It is recognized by the Constitution as an existing institution, 
 within the States, and the power of the States over the sub- 
 ject, each State, within its own limits, is, I think, most dis- 
 tinctly admitted. Nay, more : the power is treated in the 
 constitution as so completely and exclusively with the State 
 governments, that an exception is made to its exercise upon 
 the-part of any particular State, in behalf of the citizens of 
 other States; which, according to all reason, would not have 
 been done if the whole control of the subject was considered 
 as vested in the Congress. In this case, if ever, the excep- 
 tion proves the rule^ I have said that slavery within the 
 States is recognized by the constitution as an existing State 
 institution, at the time of its adoption. In the third clause 
 of the second section of the first article, 'we .have the follow- 
 ing : "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned 
 among the several States which may be included within this 
 Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be 
 determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, 
 including those bound to service for a term of years, and 
 excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons." 
 The constitution seems cautiously to have avoided the use of 
 the word slave in every section which relates to the subject. 
 But who could persons, other than free persons, and persons 
 bound to service for a term of years — who, I say, could such 
 persons be but slaves? I have also said, the power of the 
 State, over the subject within the limits of each, is distinctly 
 recognized by the Federal Constitution. In the third clause 
 of the second section of the fourth article, are the following 
 provisions: "No person, held to labor in one State, under 
 the laws thereof, escaping into an other, shall, in consequence 
 of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such 
 service Or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the 
 party to whom such service or labor may be due." Again the 
 
108 T. r, MARSHALL. 
 
 same delicacy in avoiding the use of the word slave. And in 
 the clause heretofore quoted, "the migration or importation 
 of such persons, as any of the States may choose to admit, 
 shall not be prohibited," etc. The framers seem to have 
 thought that, although they treated of the thing, the word 
 SLAVE would stain an instrument formed to establish and 
 transmit the blessings of justice, tranquillity, and liberty, to 
 the remotest American generation. The clause above quoted 
 proves, beyond disputation, that the condition and obligation 
 of persons held to service or labor, both as to kind and dura- 
 tion, is dependent entirely upon the laws of the particular 
 State; and that persons, slaves by the laws of one State may 
 not be so by those of an other: and that the only authority 
 over the subject conferred upon the general government, or 
 rather excepted from the general power of each State, is, 
 that fugitives into one StatOj even though persons of the 
 same description be free by the laws of that State, shall still 
 be surrendered, if slaves by the law of the state whence 
 they have escaped. Here, then, is not only recognized the 
 relation of master and slave^ but it is referred entirely to the 
 authority of the State laws, as to whether it shall exist; and 
 a perpetual protection is extended over it where it does exist, 
 from all interferen-ce upon the part of those States where it 
 does not exist. Admitting, then, which I do, that the power 
 of Congress to abolish the African slave trade, is derived 
 from the power granted, "to regulate commerce with foreign 
 nations," still, as it respects this article of commerce, the 
 analogy between the foreign trade, and that between the 
 States, is destroyed by the constitution itself. In the foreign 
 trade, there is no distinction made between persons and 
 things, only that the power of Congress over the importation 
 of persons, is postponed till 1808. Over persons out of the 
 limits of the United States, no State could claim any juris- 
 diction; there could not arise any conflict between the Na- 
 tional and State authorities upon this subject. The authority 
 of each State is confined to its own limits, and it is only as 
 to what is property within these limits, that any question 
 
ON SLAVERY. 109 
 
 could arise. The difference in the internal policy of the 
 States in relation to this subject, presented a very serious 
 obstacle to the formation of a national government, which 
 should embrace them all. It was felt more paTticularly in 
 the apportionment of representation. The free States, believ- 
 ing that, in the adjustment of political power, slaves could 
 not be weighed with freemen and citizens: the slave States, 
 contending that this class of persons, constituting a large 
 part of their population, and being also a subject of taxation, 
 formed a proper foundation for political power, the article I 
 have quoted, adding three-fifths in the enumeration of the 
 people, was adopted as a compromise between these opposite 
 claims. In the apportionment of taxes and of representation, 
 the same principle prevails; and, as no more slaves can be 
 included for taxation than representation, the slave States 
 were satisfied with this indemnity against any oppressive 
 levies upon that species of property which was peculiar to 
 them, the whole of it which was liable to taxation, being 
 represented in the government. But, at that day, the same 
 reasons existed with the Southern States, in all their force, 
 which exist at present, for resisting any power which should 
 attempt to destroy a relation established by their laws, and 
 to place large masses of men, in whom those laws had in- 
 vested them with the absolute ownership, between whom and 
 themselves the past relation must plant an eternal hostility — 
 eternal, because heaven had stamped a mark on the one ; an 
 everlasting badge of disgrace and servitude; an all-enduring 
 memorandum of past wrong and sufferance and oppression, 
 which no time could obliterate, nor all the waters of the 
 multitudinous ocean wash out - — I say, the spirit of the 
 Southern chivalry would have revolted at the establishment 
 of a power then, aa certainly as it would at its exercise 
 now, that could place these masses of degraded slaves upon 
 a level with their former masters. The free States, too, 
 had as deep an interest in this question as the others. It 
 has been already shown, that if the control of slaves had 
 passed to the general government, under the power to regu- 
 
110 T. P. MAKSHALL. 
 
 late commerce among the States, coupled with the prohibition 
 upon the States to lay any tax or duty upon export or 
 import, from or into any State, slavery must have been uni- 
 versal, so long as it existed at all; and no State in this 
 Union could have prohibited the introduction of a slave with- 
 in its borders, by any citizen, so long as it was recognized 
 by the general government as property within the territorial 
 limits of the United States. The parties being equally in- 
 terested in retaining the full power over the subject within 
 their respective limits, have done exactly what it was natural 
 for them to do. The authority of the laws of those States, 
 where servitude existed when the constitution was adopted, is 
 acknowledged by it. The power in other States to repel it, 
 is as clearly recognized; and, to prevent a conflict between 
 the members of a confederacy, whose variant policy and com- 
 plete independence upon this subject is so clearly admitted, 
 the general government only interposes, to protect the slave 
 States, by preventing the operation of the laws of a free State 
 upon their fugitives. "No person held to service or labor in 
 one State, under ^ the laws thereof, escaping into an other, 
 shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be dis- 
 charged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up 
 on claim of the party to whom such service for labor may 
 be due." 
 
 I deem it unnecessary to press the argument further. It is 
 useless to inquire how far Congress could have legislated 
 upon the subject of slavery within the United States, had the 
 constitution not taken the distinction which nature has taken 
 between persons and things, and recognizing the variant 
 municipal institutions of the several States upon the subject, 
 left slavery where it was found — under the control of the 
 State governments. One thing is certain, however, that any 
 legislation must have been uniform, and that slavery must 
 have been abolished, or universal. I have said, at the outset, 
 that I meant not to be implicated in the opinions of any man. 
 In closing this number I beg leave, to give the result of my 
 
ON SLAVERY. Ill 
 
 reasoning, as to the power of the gorernment over this 
 subject. 
 
 1st. The government of Kentucky has full legislative pow- 
 ers within the limits of the State. ' 
 
 2d. The plenary grant of these powers, is unrestrained, 
 unless by express prohibition in the Federal Constitution, or 
 the Constitution of Kentucky. 
 
 3d. That but for the 7th article "concerning slaves," the 
 power of the Legislature over the whole subject would have 
 been absolute and uncontrolled, and Kentucky might have 
 legislated as Pennsylvania and New York have done. 
 
 4th. That there are no prohibitions in that article, save 
 only as to the emancipation of slaves without the consent of 
 their owners, and the preventing emigrants from bringing 
 slaves with them, so long, etc.; consequently, that the legis- 
 lative power over the subject, as to all other persons, and in 
 all other cases, remains untouched. 
 
 5th. That the doctrine, "that the expression of the one is 
 the exclusion of the other," does not apply to that clause 
 which gives to the Legislature full power to prevent " slaves 
 being brought into this State as merchandize." That power 
 would have existed, independently of any grant, unless ex- 
 pressly prohibited; or we are driven to the absurd conclusion, 
 that the State Legislature has no power not expressly granted 
 — a principle which would nullify every act of the General 
 Assembly since its creation, except the law prohibiting the 
 importation of slaves as merchandize, or from any foreign 
 country, or the introduction of such as may have been im- 
 ported into the United States since 1789, etc. — the grants of 
 power in this article being the only specific grants in the 
 instrument. 
 
 6th. The reason for the introduction of this specific grant 
 
 is easily explained, and perfectly reconcilable with the true 
 
 theory of the State Constitution, on the following grounds: 
 
 From the foregoing clause in relation to emigrants, it ia 
 
 evident, if there had been nothing else added, that they could 
 
 have imported slaves either for their own use or as an article 
 8 
 
112 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 of merchandize. The constitution never intended that slaves 
 should be a subject of traffic with other States. It was 
 therefore necessary, under the full privilege of importation 
 given to emigrants in ■ the first clause, to insert the latter, 
 otherwise it would have been as Mr. Wickliife has stated — 
 " The Legislature have no power to prevent emigrants from 
 bringing slaves with them." " They shall have full power to 
 prevent slaves being brought into this State as merchandize," 
 adds the constitution, and thereby extends the power of the 
 government over emigrants, as to the traffic, most certainly 
 without abridging it, as to other persons, from that complete 
 state in which we have shown it to exist, independent of ex- 
 press prohibition. 
 
 7th. It follows, then, that the Legislature have the power 
 to prohibit emigrants from importing slaves as merchandize, 
 because the constitution has limited the general privilege con- 
 ferred upon the emigrant in one clause, by the express grant 
 of this power to the Legislature in an other, without which 
 the privilege of the emigrant would have been unlimited. It 
 follows, equally, that the Legislature can prevent, by such 
 means as to their wisdom may seem good, their own citizens, 
 and all other persons, save emigrants, from importing slaves 
 at all into the State, because the constitution has no where 
 prohibited the power, save in the case of emigrants. This is 
 what the law has done, and it is therefore within the just 
 scope of the powers of the government. 
 
 8th. The Federal Constitution has expressly recognized the 
 subject of domestic slavery within the limits of the several 
 States, as originating with, and appertaining to, the State 
 governments and laws exclusively; nay, has interposed its 
 own authority to protect the institution, where it exists, from 
 the interference of the legislation of other States. The 
 doctrine of the Abolitionists is as false in theory, as it would 
 be destructive in practice. Slaves are not treated in the 
 Federal Constitution as an article of domestic commerce, 
 appertaining to the national authority, under the grant to 
 regulate it, but are considered as persons standing in a cer- 
 
ON SLAVERY. 113 
 
 tain relation to other persons, by force of peculiar municipal 
 laws, whose authority is recognized and established. The six 
 hundred dollars, imposed by the law of 1833, is not therefore 
 a tax, duty, or impost laid upon an article of commerce, 
 within the meaning of the Federal Constitution, but is a 
 pecuniary penalty for an indictable offense, imposed by a 
 government with which none other on earth conflicts, or can 
 conflict, upon this particular subject. 
 
 I feel that I have sacrificed brevity to perspicuity. I have 
 the strongest personal reasons for desiring to be clearly 
 understood upon this branch of the subject, and offer this as 
 my apology for what might otherwise be regarded as unpar- 
 donable prolixity. Having established the authority of the 
 government, (as I am persuaded,) to pass this law, I will, in 
 my next, consider it in the more interesting aspect of it» 
 practical effects, its propriety and wisdom. 
 
 3sro. III. 
 
 Vindication of the law of 1833, upon the score of polio/ and the public interest. 
 
 I HAVE proven, I think, that the Government of Kentucky 
 had full power to enact the law of 1833, and upon the sub- 
 ject of slavery within her limits is absolutely sovereign, 
 except in the cases expressly prohibited by the State Con- 
 stitution. In defending the policy of that law at the time of 
 its passage, and in maintaining that the reasons for its con- 
 tinuance are far stronger even than for its establishment, I 
 shall not discuss the abstract question of slavery. Those who 
 choose to search for its foundation among the original and 
 natural rights of men may do so. I take slavery as I find it, 
 a positive institution, recognized by the constitution of my 
 country. The right of the master to such persons as were 
 slaves, within the Commonwealth at the time of the adoption 
 of that constitution, by th6 laws then in force, and to such 
 persons as the laws since have perniitted to be introduced 
 
114 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 into the country, being slaves by the laws of other States, 
 and being of the same description with persons held in bond- 
 age here, is as complete and as entirely protected by law 
 from the power of the government as any other right of 
 property whatever; and this, whether the legislation be 
 present or prospective, whether it relate to slaves in exist- 
 ence at the passage of the law, or grasp at future and 
 unborn generations. The doctrine of the emancipating power 
 of the government over the "post-nati" I have ever denied. 
 The reasoning which seeks to distinguish between the consti- 
 tutional right of the master over his slave in existence, and 
 over the unborn issue of the females, has no foundation either 
 in law or nature. The law of servitude is express ; it places 
 the descendants of the females, without limitation, upon the 
 same footing with the ancestors. The issue follows the con- 
 dition of the parent, "Partus sequitur ventrem." It is no 
 answer to say that a person not in being can not be a slave. 
 It is just as true that a person not in being can not be free. 
 The unborn can neither be the subject of the law of servitude 
 or the statute of emancipation. Neither can attach till birth, 
 and then the constitution takes the precedence. 
 
 By the Constitution of Kentucky, the Legislature can not 
 pass a law emancipating the issue of female slaves born there- 
 after, in any other manner than they can slaves then in 
 existence — they are upon the same footing, and the rights of 
 the master are equally protected in both cases. But although 
 the constitution recognized the existing laws and shielded the 
 rights of the master, it very clearly does not embrace the 
 principles or the policy advocated by Mr. Wickliffe. Under 
 that gentleman's reasoning and definitions, the insti'ument 
 itself may be considered as an abolition document. "But 
 what is an abolitionist," asks Mr. Wickliffe, p. 17 — "One 
 who intends to abolish negro slavery by an immediate or a 
 slow process — by a direct attack upon the tenure of slavery, 
 or by an indirect mode." That the constitution contemplated 
 the extinction of negro slavery as a possible event, is obvious 
 from the language employed in the article heretofore quoted. 
 
ON SLAVEEY. 115 
 
 It declares that the right of emigrants to bring slaves with 
 them into this State shall only continue "so long as any per- 
 sons of the same age or description "■shall he continued in 
 slavery hy the laws of this Slate." And it leaves it in the 
 power of the Legislature to bring about the event here 
 alluded to, by conferring the power to emancipate slaves, with 
 the consent of the owners, or by paying a full equivalent, 
 and to prevent their importation by emigrants as merchan- 
 dize, and leaving the power to prohibit their importation by 
 all other persons for any purpose, untouched. The framers 
 of the constitution would be astounded, one would suppose, 
 at the doctrines of Mr. W.'s pamphlet. 
 
 The policy of the law of 1833 was especially aimed at the 
 traffic in slaves, and the introduction of them as merchandize 
 from other States. 
 
 The laws of 1794 and 1815 prohibiting their introduction 
 as merchandize only, but leaving the right in the citizens to 
 import for their own use, had failed in the effect which they 
 were intended to produce. They prohibited, to be sure, the 
 introduction of slaves with the intent to sell, or for the pur- 
 poses of merchandize, within the Commonwealth, but they 
 established no test by which the intent was to be ascertained ; 
 and they did not and could not prohibit the sale of a slave 
 once brought in. The crime did not consist in selling a man's 
 own slaves after they were imported. His necessities, his 
 debts, his convenience, a thousand things might induce the 
 sale, and, above all, the right to dispose of his own property 
 within the country could not be reached or questioned. It 
 was the intent with which they were introduced, to which, and 
 to which alone, the penalty attached. Every body knows that 
 between 1815 and 1833, nothing was more common than to 
 see whole droves of human beings driven in chains, like wild 
 beasts, along the highways. Slaves were driven into the 
 Commonwealth, and hired out for long terms, in some in- 
 stances for 99 years, in evasion of the laws. Feeling that the 
 past Legislation was entirely inefficient, the Legislature of 
 1833 struck at the root of the evil, by prohibiting all impor- 
 
116 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 tation, except in the cases authorized by the constitution, and 
 some other cases in favor of citizens, as to slaves already 
 within the Commonwealth, and others heretofore noticed. Aa 
 a farther and scarcely less important object, the law was 
 designed to prevent the increase of this species of property, 
 by the introduction of the desperate, and vicious, and outcast 
 portion of this outcast race from Maryland, Virginia, and the 
 Carolinas. At the time of the passage of this law, the sect 
 now known by the title of " Abolitionists" had not made their 
 appearance. And, as I was sworn then upon the constitution 
 of my country, by all the obligations of that oath, I affirm 
 now, that I do not believe, that the principles and designs, 
 ascribed to that party, were in the contemplation of any 
 human being who voted for the law. I was myself not only 
 never an abolitionist, but never an emancipationist upon any 
 plan which I ever heard proposed. I was not an emancipa- 
 tionist, because I believed that the power did not exist. I 
 would not have been, even though it had existed, unless 
 coijpled with the means for the deportation of the race. No 
 plan of that sort had occurred to me which seemed feasible. 
 I have uniformly voted against the Convention Bill. The 
 year it passed, I voted against it in the Legislature, and op- 
 posed it warmly before the people, the summer the question 
 was submitted to them. 
 
 But holding every opinion heretofore advanced in these 
 papers, I still regard negro slavery as a political misfortune. 
 
 That the laws enacted before 1833, had failed of any bene- 
 ficial effect, and that the evil was increasing upon us fearfully, 
 a reference to the statistics of the respective periods will 
 demonstrate. A comparison of the state of the population 
 before the passage of the law, and at present, will show that 
 since that period there has been none, or a very trifling in- 
 crease. In 1820, the total population of Kentucky, according 
 tC the census then taken, was 564,317, of which 126,732 were 
 slaves, leaving the white population 437,585. In 1830, by 
 the same authority, the total population was 687,917, of which 
 165,213 were slaves, leaving 522,704— which exhibits an in- 
 
ON SLAVERY., 117 
 
 crease, within ten years, of 85,119, in the white population, 
 upon a,basis of 437,585 ; and an increase of 38,481, in slaves, 
 upon a basis of 126,732. If this numb&r of slaves gave an 
 increase of 38,481, in the same proportion 487,585 whites 
 should have given an increase of 134,209, Whereas it only 
 exhibits an increase of 85,119r— so that, in the ten years im- 
 mediately preceding the passage of the law under considera- 
 tion, the white population did not increase in the ratio or the 
 same proportion with the black, upon the data given, by some- 
 thing like fifty thousand souls, a difference of something like 
 12 per cent. — 11 per cent, and a fraction. The present 
 amount of the black population, according to the Auditor's 
 report of slaves listed for taxation, is 166,616, exhibiting an 
 increase of 1400 slaves in ten years, including two years 
 before the passage of the law. Until the census of 1840 is 
 known, we have no certain means of determining the increase 
 of the white population within the same period. Any state- 
 ment upon the subject would be conjectural. There is no 
 doubt, however, that, notwithstanding the immense emigration 
 from the State, the white population has increased steadily, 
 and in a ratio nearly equal to what it was within the former 
 period. The total valuation of the taxable property within 
 the Commonwealth, in 1833, as taken from the Auditor's 
 books, was $126,601,004. The total valuation in 1840, ex- 
 cluding that taken under the equalizing law, which was not 
 taken in 1833, is $240,551,187 — exhibiting an increase in the 
 capital of the State, since the passage of this horrible law, of 
 $113,960,183, being very near one hundred per cent. These 
 are indisputable facts. Let us cast our eyes within the 
 period of ten years before the passage of this law upon South 
 Carolina, whose principles and institutions are an object of 
 such peculiar admiration with the Senator from Fayette. 
 Between 1820 and 1830, the increase of slaves in that State 
 was 56,926; of the whites, 21,518 — a difference of more than 
 one hundred per cent, in the increase of the black over the 
 white population^ Again let us compare Ohio with Kentucky 
 and South Carolina, within the same period — the three States 
 
118 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 being nearly equal in population in 1820. Ohio had, at that 
 period, 581,434; Kentucky, 564,317; and South Carolina, 
 502,741 — total population. Starting from these nearly equal 
 bases, Ohio, within ten years, exhibits an increase of 356,469 
 souls; Carolina, 78,444, and Kentucky, 123,600, including 
 slaves in the latter States. The same astounding facts -will 
 present themselves by a comparison of all and each of the 
 slivQ States with the free. I put it to the people of 
 Kentucky, whether the operation of this law has been mis- 
 chievous. I ask them to weigh well their present position, 
 and consider the consequences of its repeal. The avowed 
 object of the repeal of the law, is to satisfy the demand for 
 labor in Kentucky by the introduction of slaves. There is no 
 difference between the friends and enemies of the law as to 
 the effect of its repeal. Let us trace it: Virginia, the Caroli- 
 nas, and Georgia, contain one million two hundred and forty- 
 eight thousand two hundred and ninety slaves. In our com- 
 mercial relations with these States, the balance is always 
 against them. Repeal this law, and who does not perceive, 
 that while slaves are cheaper there than here, this balance 
 will be settled annually, by the introduction of slaves to the 
 whole extent of the balance. I have no means within my 
 reach of ascertaining what this is in amount. Every one 
 knows, however, that it is immense. The laws of trade will 
 indisputably cause the flow of this property into Kentucky, 
 until the price is equalized between the two countries. While 
 a trader can obtain a larger price for his horses and miQes in 
 the South, than they cost him here, he will export horses and 
 mules; while he can, in exchange for them, receive slaves at 
 a less price than he can obtain for them here, he will import 
 slaves. I am of course understood to mean that the difference 
 in price must be sufficient to defray the charges of transpor- 
 tation, and reimburse the capital with a fair profit. In the 
 present state of the market, no branch of traffic would be so 
 profitable as the slave trade between Kentucky and the South. 
 The effect of the law upon the trade has been similiar to that 
 of a dam across a stream, ifad it been permitted to flow, it 
 
ON" SLAVERY. 119 
 
 would have been of equal depth above and below. Tear away 
 the dam, and all the accumulated waters, the whole dark 
 flood, will pour upon us with the force of a sudden inunda- 
 tion, overwhelming or sweeping away every vestige of im- 
 provement below. The torrent will only lose its violence 
 when it finds its level. The current of the trade will continue 
 till the channel here is filled up even with the precious 
 fountains whence it is derived. The Senator from Fayette 
 may fairly be considered as the great champion of repeal. 
 His own position^ which he has very clearly defined, may, 
 with propriety, be considered as that of the party which he 
 claims to lead. That I may not be suspected of misrepresen- 
 tation, I will take from his own book the scheme of policy 
 which he suggests, and the consequences which he anticipates 
 from the pursuit of it. That the consequences will happen, 
 I feel morally certain ; and that the policy is therefore ruin- 
 ous, I am equally convinced. 
 
 I have already shown the efiFects of the law, from a com- 
 parison between the present condition of the Commonwealth 
 in capital and population, and what it was at the date of its 
 passage. This comparison fills Mr. Wickliffe with horror. 
 He admits that the increase of slaves in Kentucky has ceased 
 under the operation of this law. Their price has risen, and, 
 along with it, there has been a general rise in the wages of 
 labor. That the proportion of non-slaveholders to slave- 
 holders has increased. That under the operation of the law 
 it will continue to increase. The increase of our slaves is our 
 only defense against the influx of mechanics from Europe and 
 the free States. "No, fellow-citizens," says the Senator from 
 Fayette, " our slaves, upon this point, are our only defense ; 
 for so soon as they disappear, a new race will overrun the 
 State of Kentucky, as assuredly as ever Goths and Vandals 
 overran Kome." The slaveholder and non-slaveholder are 
 represented as of necessity enemies. "Mr. Green's plan," 
 says Mr. W. "was to drain the slaves from the State until 
 none but the wealthy shall own them, and then to set the 
 non-slaveholder upon the slaveholder, and through the ballot- 
 
120 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 box, by the mere force of numbers, to set the negroes 
 free." 
 
 The wise and experienced mind of the Senator from 
 Fayette has reached the conclusion that States claiming 
 to be free, are in reality not so; that in all countries there 
 must be slaves, and the difference between himself and the 
 gentleman from Madison (against whom he is reasoning) is, 
 that he (Mr. W.) wishes black slaves, and that gentleman 
 white ones. That the great body of the people in England, 
 who support themselves by their labor, are, in very truth, the 
 slaves of the landholders and capitalists who employ them, 
 and that the free States of this Union are tending rapidly to 
 this necessary consummation of all social existence — see p. 
 14. As a cure for all these evils, to wit, the decrease of the 
 black race, the increase of white population, the influx of 
 mechanics, the appreciation of the slave property remaining, 
 the high wages of labor, all of which horrors, it seems, are 
 brought about by the machinations of England, Mr. Wickliffe 
 recommends the repeal of this law, and of all laws restricting 
 the free circulation of slave property throughout the States 
 which hold it. After painting the horrors of abolitionism, 
 Mr. W. closes with these remarkable words: "Is this a time 
 for slaveholding States to make statutory wars upon one an- 
 other? I think not." He afterward adds: "But pa the con- 
 trary, conventions should be held by delegates from all the 
 slave States, and rules adopted for their general safety. 
 Nothing would contribute so much to defeat the machinations 
 of England against them, as to break down all restrictions 
 made by particular States, and thereby to extend the slave 
 population over the whole face of the territory of each and 
 every State where slavery exists." The old humbug of the 
 South Carolina Railroad is held in terrorem over us too. On 
 page 11, of this ever remarkable pamphlet, we have the 
 following precious threat: "I well recollect seeing published 
 in the South Carolina papers a series of numbers warning the 
 people of the South, against expending their substance in 
 making the South Carolina Railroad to Lexington : and one 
 
ON SLAVEEY. 121 
 
 of the strongest arguments used was, that the State of Ken- 
 tucky had made war with the Southerners, in not permitting 
 them to send or use their slaves in Kentucky." " Sirs," says 
 Mr. W., indignantly, " do you expect that Carolina will ever 
 make the road while this abolition tinder-box disgraces your 
 statute book? If you do, you greatly deceive yourselves." 
 
 Would any man imagine, that after Mr. Wickliffe's defense 
 of slavery, his definition and denunciations of abolitionists, 
 and his plan for defeating their schemes, by banishing, all 
 non-slaveholders from the country, and flooding it with slaves 
 from the South, to the everlasting exclusion of those " Goths 
 and Vandals," the free mechanics from other countries — 
 would any man imagine that he himself looked to the extinc- 
 tion of slavery? And yet he says after his proposition "to 
 extend the slave population over the whole face of the terri- 
 tory of each and every State where slavery exists" — " This 
 plan will give time and space for prudential legislation on 
 the subject, and will wear out rather than break the chain of 
 slavery." Was he shocked by the enormity of his own opin- 
 ions, and did he put this in as a salvo; or are we really to 
 understand that he proposes to increase the evil as a mean 
 of finally getting rid of it? If Mr. Wickliffe be really de- 
 sirous of a prudential course of legisla,tion, by which, without 
 violating the right of property, or, to use his own phrase, 
 " breaking the chain of slavery," we may ultimately and 
 gradually "wear it out;" I put it to his reason and to his 
 conscience, whether the policy of 1833 is not better adapted 
 to that end, than the plan he proposes? If Mr. Wickliife 
 really believes that the British Government and the aboli- 
 tionists mean forcibly to interfere with this property, and "to 
 break the chain," I again put it to his common sense, whe- 
 ther Kentucky is not better prepared to protect herself from 
 insurrection in her present situation than in that to which he 
 would reduce her? Kentucky now contains about 600,000 
 whites to 166,000 blacks — a majority in numerical strength 
 of 434,000 in favor of the white race. Divide the blacks 
 equally, give one slave round as far as they will go, and you 
 
122 T. F, MARSHALL. 
 
 will have 166,000 slaveholders and 434,000 non-slaveholders- 
 Here there is no danger. Here we are spared that last 
 horrible curse of domestic slavery, the constant terror of a 
 domestic foe. 'Unless, indeed, we are to believe that the free 
 white population, holding none of this property, is the natural 
 ally of the negro — a supposition, by-the-by, upon which Mr. 
 Wickliffe's whole reasoning seems to be based. The conse- 
 quences of the repeal of this law, to which Mr. Wickliffe 
 looks as a blessing, in all candor, I avow, that I regard as 
 the most unmitigated curse which the avenging hand of God 
 could inflict upon my country. As to what those consequen- 
 ces will be, h6 and I do not differ. The wages of labor will 
 be lower — the price of slaves will be reduced — the influx of 
 free mechanics and artisans will be effectually prevented — 
 those who are not able to purchase slaves, or are not willing 
 to hold them, will be driven out — a check, effectual and 
 eternal will be given to the increase of white population, and 
 the black encouraged and stimulated to its utmost capacity 
 of 'expansion. And are these blessings? If so, upon whom 
 are they to fall? Not upon the present race of slaveholders, 
 surely. Will Mr. Wickliffe's fortune be improved by a 
 general reduction of the value of slaves ? Will the non- 
 slaveholder consider it as a blessing? The avowed ground 
 of the policy is jealousy of him. Hear Mr. Wickliffe : The 
 scheme of the abolitionists for Kentucky is " to drain the slaves 
 from the State until none but the wealthy shall own them, and 
 to set the non-slaveholder upon the slaveholder, and, through 
 the ballot-box, by the mere force of numbers, to set the ne- 
 groes free. To effect this object the law was passed," etc. 
 
 The law is tending to this result by diminishing the number 
 of slaves, and it is to alter, and for ever prevent, this state 
 of things that its repeal is sought. And what is the " modus 
 operandi " of Mr. Wickliffe's policy ? To open the doors wide 
 to the importation of slaves, and thereby so to reduce the 
 wages of labor as for ever to exclude "the free mechanics" 
 from Europe and the North, who can, in the proposed state 
 of things, find no means of employment within our country. 
 
ON SLAVERY. 123 
 
 And yet Mr. Wickliffe denies that the repeal of this law will 
 drive free labor from the State. In proof of this, I will make 
 one more, and the last, quotation from his pamphlet: "A 
 gentleman from Woodford, I am informed, stated to you the 
 other night, that every negro that is brought into the State 
 drives a mechanic from it. Had the gentleman told you that 
 every negro that comes into the State keeps a mechanic from 
 being driven from it, he would have come nearer the truth." 
 Is there a man in the world who does not perceive, that the 
 same causes which would exclude, would also expel. If the 
 wages of labor, from the number of slaves, be reduced so low 
 that a mechanic, or free laborer from abroad, can not come 
 into the country, Tjecause he will find no means of supporting 
 himself and family, or improving his fortune — must not the 
 same circumstances induce the mechanic, already in the coun- 
 try, to seek a more congenial market for his industry ? Has 
 not the operation of slavery been precisely similar in the 
 Southern Atlantic States ? Has it not banished manufactures 
 and the mechanical arts from Virginia and the Carolinas? 
 Has not Mr. Wickliffe told us that his leading object is to 
 keep out head mechanics and head manufacturers, and to con- 
 fine the population to landholders and slaves, to liken us to 
 Virginia and South Carolina — to link us in for ever with their 
 policy and th«ir fate. The effect and policy of the law is to 
 diminish the number of slaves and to increase the white popu- 
 lation — this, the Senator from Fayette admits, and dreads, and 
 opposes. The repeal of the law is to increase the number of 
 slaves and to diminish the white population, and thereby to 
 defeat the influence of non-slaveholders in elections. The 
 people of Kentucky should consider of this policy. There 
 are now in Kentucky about 600,000 white souls and about 
 166,000 black. The proportion between slaveholders and non- 
 slaveholders is not known accurately, but the great preponde- 
 rance of. the latter is obvious from the foregoing statement. 
 Were we to distribute the black population equally, giving 
 one to each man, there Would be 434,000 non-slaveholders to 
 166,000 slaveholders. But they are not equally distributed. 
 
124 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 It is said that tbe Senator from Fayette owns some three 
 hundred himself, and, consequently, the preponderance is 
 greater than what is represented above. What must this 
 class of voters think of a policy which is aimed at their very 
 existence, and that, too, upon a supposition that they are of 
 necessity abolitionists, and the enemies of the slaveholders? 
 Is it wise, or is it humane, in any man to endeavor to draw 
 a party line of this description within the Commonwealth, 
 and to represent these classes of citizens, as naturally and 
 necessarily hostile upon a subject, of all others, the most 
 exasperating ? 
 
 Have the non-slaveholders in Kentucky deserved the charge 
 made against them? The Legislature of Kentucky, a short 
 time back, passed a law authorizing the people to vote upon 
 the call of a Convention. Mr. Wickliffe says that this was an 
 abolition scheme. Kentucky was to be the battleground, and 
 the tenure of slavery was to be destroyed by a new constitu- 
 tion. What said a people in which there were at least five 
 non-slaveholders to one slaveholder? They voted down the 
 convention bill, and refused to change a constitution which 
 recognized slavery, and placed the right of the master beyond 
 the reach of the government. They were far more liberal to 
 Mr. WickliiFe and his class, than we have every reason to be- 
 lieve he would be to their rights, if he had the power. He is 
 afraid of their influence at the ballot-box — ^he is afraid of the 
 exercise of their suffrages. These opinions are not peculiar 
 to Mr. Wickliffe — the principles upon which they are founded, 
 are incorporated in the Constitutions of Virginia and South 
 Carolina. The slaveholders in those States have not left their 
 cherished rights, and the perpetuation of slavery, to a mere 
 constitutional provision. They have taken more substantial 
 guarantees in the composition of their Legislature and in the 
 distribution of their representation. The representation in 
 Kentucky is apportioned among the several cO'Unties, accord- 
 ing to the ratio of voting freemen in each — a ratio equal and 
 uniform throughout the Commonwealth. The representation 
 in Virginia and South Carolina is distributed among the seve- 
 
ON" SLAVEEY. 125 
 
 ral districts into which the States are respectively laid off, 
 not according to the number of free white men in each dis- 
 trict — no such thing. In fixing the districts, the negro popu- 
 lation is considered as the basis of political power, and the 
 preponderance of representation is given to those districts in 
 which there is a preponderance, not of freemen, but of slave 
 property. In some instances, a dozen freemen, in respect to 
 the slaves which they hold, may have as large a representa- 
 tion in the General Assembly as five hundred in an other 
 district where there are fewer slaves. I heard the question 
 discussed long and keenly in the Virginia Convention. The 
 Lowlanders contended that the principle was essential to the 
 security of that description of property, and they carried the 
 day. According to the present Constitution of Virginia, no 
 change in the state of the white population can affect the dis- 
 tribution of the representation, or shake the power of the 
 large slaveholding districts in the constitution. The House 
 of Representatives consists of one hundred and thirty-four 
 members — of which, fifty-six are chosen by the counties west 
 of the Blue Ridge mountain, and seventy-eight by the coun- 
 ties, east of the Blue Ridge. The Senate consists of thirty- 
 two-members — of whom thirteen are assigned to the counties . 
 west, and nineteen to those east of the Blue Ridge, giving 
 to the country below the ridge, upon joint ballot, a majority 
 of twenty-eight in the General Assembly. The constitution 
 further provides, that every ten years the Legislature shall 
 apportion the representation among the several counties and 
 towns, within the districts, but that the number of delegates 
 assigned by the constitution, as above shown, to each of the 
 great sectional divisions of the Commonwealth, shall not be 
 altered or affected. So that, in the progress of time, should 
 there be left in the lower counties only enough freemen to 
 complete the representation to which they are entitled — to 
 wit, ninety-seven — and the white population in the Wes.t 
 should increase an hundredfold, still those ninety-seven would 
 wield a greater political power in the State, by twenty-eight 
 votes, than the million of men who might be found in Western 
 
126 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 Virginia. The constitutions of these States seem to be based 
 upon the idea that the non-slaveholders are not to be trusted, 
 and have no doubt furnished Mr. Wickliffe the argument he 
 has employed. In the present state of our population, an 
 attempt to make our free constitution conform to those of 
 these States would be hopeless, and the next best thing to be 
 done is, to sweep off the non-slaveholders, by the introduction 
 of such masses of slaves, as working for their masters free of 
 wages, and absorbing all the capital destined for the employ- 
 ment of labor, will soon banish all competitors, and limit the 
 population to that most desirable state in which there will be 
 found none but the large landed capitalist and his grubbing 
 slave. The non-slaveholders have, then, surely no interest in 
 the repeal of this law. Will it advance our commerce ? WiU 
 it extend mercantile operations .and enterprize ? The object 
 of commerce is to supply those articles from abroad, for the 
 consumption of the people, which are not produced at home. 
 Its very definition proves that its extent must depend upon 
 the number of consumers, and their ability to purchase. Do 
 the four hundred and sixty-nine thousand slaves in Virginia, 
 or the three hundred and fifteen thousand in South Carolina, 
 afford the same effectual demand for the importation of mer- 
 chandize, which the same number of free and independent 
 citizens would do ? The answer is obvious : their consump- 
 tion of whatever is to be purchased by the master is limited 
 to what is absolutely necessary, and their means of purchase 
 for themselves are nothing. Will having the whole returns 
 of our Southern trade, made in the most degraded, the most 
 vicious of Southern slaves, the very vomit of Virginia and 
 South Carolina jails, instead of money or bills upon the East, 
 better enable us to meet our foreign balances at the points 
 whence we import? Every merchant, every banker, will an- 
 swer, no. But to do Mr. Wickliffe justice upon this branch 
 of the subject, he has taught for years that our commerce 
 with the East and North is ruinous ; that it has drained us 
 constantly of all our specie, and is grinding us into absolute 
 poverty. The Mississippi trade has been equally unfortunate, 
 
ON SLAVERY. 127 
 
 and, according to him, Georgia and the Carolinas are the 
 only source of wealth to us — to them we sell, from them we 
 ought to buy. Commerce has mistaken its own interests, and 
 the merchants do not know their true market. Be it observed, 
 however, that, as those States have nothing which, in the 
 present condition of our industry and of theirs, we could pos- 
 sibly import but negroes, the whole a,nd entire commerce of 
 Kentucky would be reduced to the slave trade. Will it ad- 
 vance agriculture more than it will manufactures or commerce ? 
 Ask the ruined fields^the waste and depopulated districts of 
 lower Virginia. Will it improve the condition, the morals, or 
 the character of our present race of slaves? They are at 
 present a sort of inferior rural population^a degraded cast, 
 to be sure, but intelligent and virtuous when compared with 
 the brutal and savage masses in the Atlantic States. From 
 the smallness of their number they are rendered more valuable 
 as servants, but perfectly insignificant as enemies. Neither 
 the government nor their masters feel any terror from them. 
 Their very weakness improves their condition, and is the 
 source, to them, of kindness and indulgence. In many in- 
 stances, they are a sort of household dependents and humble 
 friends, and are often found in the same field laboring in 
 company with their master. With us, resistance or insurrec- 
 tion is impossible. Thfe husband can leave his wife, the 
 mother her child, without apprehension from this source. 
 Phantoms of conflagration and massacre haunt not our slum- 
 bers — the terrors of St. Domingo, or of Northampton, vex not 
 our waking thoughts. Will it strengthen us politically ? Look 
 at the state of the representation in Congress between the 
 free and slave States, and the question is answered. Shall 
 the government of Kentucky let go the check-rein which they 
 now hold in this law^, upon the growth of the most threaten- 
 ing evil in the constitution of American Society ? 
 
 I have said that I considered negro slavery as a political 
 misfortune. The phrase was too mild. It is a cancer — a 
 slow, consuming cancer — a withering pestilence — an unmiti- 
 gated curse. I speak not in the spirit of a puling and false 
 9 
 
128 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 philanthropy. I was born in a slave State — I was nursed by 
 a slave — my life has been saved by a slave. To me, custom 
 has made the relation familiar, and I see nothing borrible in 
 it. I am a Virginian by descent — every cross in my blood, 
 so far as I can trace it, in the paternal or maternal line, is 
 Virginian. It is the only State in the Union in which I ever 
 resided, save Kentucky. I was never north of the Chesa- 
 peake Bay. My friends, my family, my sympathies, my 
 habits, my education, are Virginian. Yet I consider negro 
 slavery as a political cancer and a curse. And she taught 
 me so to consider it. Hear her own early declarations — pon- 
 der on her history — look at her present condition. 
 
 The delegates and representatives of the good people of 
 Virginia, in convention assembled, on the 29th June, 1776, in 
 the preamble to their first constitution, containing the memo- 
 rable declaration against the government of Creorge III, of 
 England, and setting forth their grievances, among others, 
 present the following as cause of rebellion and dismember- 
 ment from the British empire, that the aforesaid George had 
 endeavored to pervert his kingly office "into a detestable and 
 insupportable tyranny," " by prompting our negroes to rise in 
 arms against us — those very negroes whom, by an inhuman 
 use of his negative, he had refused us permission to exclude 
 by law" — see preamble to amended Constitution of Virginia. 
 One of the causes, then, of the American revolution, at least 
 in Virginia, was the " inhuman" refusal of the British crown, 
 to ratify a law prohibiting the importation of slaves. I have 
 shown in my first number, that almost the first use made by 
 that venerable and renowned Commonwealth of her newly 
 acquired liberty, was an effort to arrest, by legislation, the 
 increase of that tremendous evil of which she complains so 
 bitterly against the king. In 1790, just after the adoption 
 of the Federal Constitution, that point of time which forms 
 the true starting post of these States, in the race of nations, 
 what was the situation of Virginia? Occupying the most 
 central position upon the American seaboard — having the 
 greatest extent of coast in the Union — stretching from the 
 
ON SLAVERY. 129 
 
 Chesapeake bay to the line of North Carolina, and from the 
 Atlantic ocean to the Ohio river — covering a surface of 70,000 
 square miles^ — embracing under the mildest latitudes tlue great- 
 est varieties of soil — prolific of the richest and most dissimilar 
 products — intersected in every direction by the noblest navi- 
 gable streams, connecting her mountains on the one side with 
 the ocean, on the other with the bright waters of the Oiiio — 
 she seemed to comprehend within herself all the elements of 
 empire. Nature never spread out a fairer, a nobler theatre 
 for the enterprising genius of liberty and industry, than the 
 State of Virginia. In the diversified productions of the dif- 
 ferent portions of her extended territory, there were laid the 
 foundations of the largest domestic trade of any State in the 
 world. Abounding in minerals of every species, from gold to 
 lead, with the finest salt-wells on the continent, her valley 
 teeming with grass and grain, and her lowlands giving her a 
 monopoly in the then richest staple of the planting States, 
 what more could she ask at the hand of Heaven? Did she 
 want manufactures? She had the finest water power, the 
 most abundant materials, and the easiest communications. 
 Did she desire foreign commerce ? The ocean lay before her, 
 and the inlet of the Chesapeake, meeting the waters of her 
 own Potomac, washed her entire eastern border. Behind, and 
 touching her, lay the great valley of the west — the fairest 
 portion of it once her own — that valley which was competent 
 to sustain countless millions of men — which was destined to 
 comprehend within its capacious bosom many States — States 
 whose consumption is even now incalculable, and whose pow- 
 ers of purchase and of payment far exceed even their vast 
 demand. This trade which sustains the commerce of Penn- 
 sylvania and New York, and the manufactures of New Eng- 
 land — this enormous trade, which is still in its infancy, but 
 which, even in its cradle, is competent to absorb and digest 
 the capital — to keep in full and profitable employment the 
 commercial industry of cities containing more free people 
 than are to be found in all the broad territories of the old 
 Dominion — might, and should have been all her own. It 
 
130 T. ¥. MARSHALL. 
 
 seems, indeed, to have been designed for her by nature, and 
 to have tempted her by every inducement of circumstance and 
 position. She had but to extend her arm and grasp it with 
 all its treasures in full monopoly. Through the Ohio river, 
 and her western streams, it was brought home, to the very 
 foot of her mountains — that barrier passed, and it was poured 
 through various channels, dividing and watering her whole 
 eastern territory, into the bosom of the Atlantic. No State 
 lay so convenient — to none were presented so many facilities, 
 and so few difficulties, in the acquisition and entire command 
 of the trade of the West. Did she lack the intellect to per- 
 ceive — the genius to comprehend her position and her in- 
 terest ? Oh, no ! Magna mater virum, she had produced a 
 race of men " with minds to comprehend the Universe " — 
 men whose names and actions placed Virginia first in fame, 
 as she was in power and position, among the States, and 
 threw a splendor over her early history, which still shines in 
 lingering and melancholy radiance round her worn and faded 
 brow — " a gilded halo, hovering o'er decay." They saw, and 
 would have seized, all her advantages. George Washington, 
 great in all things, and having stretched before his prophetic 
 vision in long perspective, the future fortunes of the empire 
 he had founded, warned Virginia of the importance of the 
 West. He first projected the connection of the Chesapeake 
 with the Ohio river, through means of the waters of the 
 Potomac and Monongahela. They lacked not the intelligence. 
 Had other States the start of her in population? Let us com- 
 pare Virginia with New York, the only State which could 
 challenge a comparison with her. 
 
 In 1790, Virginia, with 70,000 square miles of territory 
 and internal resources such as I have described, contained a 
 population of 748,308. New York, upon a surface of 45,658 
 square miles, contained a population of 340,120. This state- 
 ment exhibits in favor of Virginia a difference of 24,342 
 square miles of territory, and 408,188 in population, which is 
 the double of New York, and 68,000 more. In 1830, after a 
 race of forty years, Virginia is found to contain 1,211,405 
 
ON SLAVERY. 131 
 
 souls, and New York 1,918,608, which exhibits a difference 
 in favor of New York of 707,203. The increase upon the 
 part of Virginia will be perceived to be 463,197, starting 
 from a basis more than double as large as that of New York. 
 The increase of New York, upon a basis of 340,120 has been 
 1,578,588. This exhibits a positive diflFerence in increase of 
 1,115,391 human beings. Virginia has increased in a ratio 
 of 61 per cent., and New York in that of five hundred and 
 sixty-six per cent. What the next census will show we can 
 not tell. The total amount of property in Virginia, under 
 the assessment of 1838, was $211,930,508 OSJ, The aggre- 
 gate valuation of real and personal property, in New York, 
 in 1889, was $654,000,000, exhibiting an excess in New York 
 over Virginia, of capital, of $442,069,492. Statesmen may 
 difier about policy, or the means to be employed in the pro- 
 motion of the public good, but surely they ought to be agreed 
 as to what prosperity means. I think there can be no dis- 
 pute that New York is a greater, a richer, a more thriving, 
 prosperous, and powerful' State than Virginia. What has 
 occasioned the difference? We have already seen that, as to 
 advantages merely physical — as to all the original elements 
 of grandeur, wealth, and power — ^Virginia was unsurpassed. 
 Has accident or misfortune operated in this case? Has a des- 
 potic government bowed the spirit and cramped the efforts of 
 Virginia? Has she suffered under the desolations of war or 
 scourge of pestilence? Over this fair land, a balmy atmo- 
 sphere and purest skies, smile health and cheerfulness. Heal- 
 ing fountains of mineral and medicinal waters burst from her 
 mountains. The most delicious baths, the most salubrious 
 springs, tempt from every land the pilgrims of affliction and 
 disease. With war she has nothing to do ; against its dangers, 
 its horrors, or its burdens, she has no provision to make. Her 
 government and people are not charged with the care or ex- 
 penses incident to defense. The broad shield of the Union 
 is spread befqre her. The potent arm of that government 
 which combines the strength and revenues of twenty-six 
 States, and wields the whole for the protection of each, is 
 
132 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 pledged to maintain her rights and her safety against all the 
 world. There is but one explanation of the facts I hare 
 shown. There is but one cause commensurate with the eifecta 
 produced. The clog which has staid the march of her people, 
 the incubus which has weighed down her enterprize, strangled 
 her commerce, kept sealed her exhaustless fountains of mine- 
 ral wealth, and paralyzed her arts, manufactures, and im- 
 provement, is negro slavery. This is the cancer which has 
 corroded her revenues, laid waste her lowlands, banished her 
 citizens, and swallowed up her productions. This is the 
 magazine, the least approach to which fills her with terror. 
 This is the slumbering volcano which will bear no handling. 
 The smallest breath to fan, the slightest threat to stir its 
 sleeping but unextinguished fires, drives her to madness. Oh ! 
 well might she curse the tyrant who planted this dark plague- 
 spot upon her virgin bosom. 
 
 I have given the total population of Virginia, at the two 
 periods, and shown the total increase. Let us examine the 
 relative fortunes of the two races as to their numerical pro- 
 gress. In 1790, there were of whites 544,881, in 1830, 
 741,648, showing an increase in forty years, of 196,767, or 
 about 36 per cent., a little over one-third. In 1790, the 
 slave population amounted to 203,427— in 1830, to 469,757, 
 showing an increase within the same period, of 266,330 
 blacks, being one hundred and thirty-three per cent, increase 
 on the original number. 
 
 If we examine the other slave States, we will perceive the 
 same principle at work. In North Carolina, the black popu- 
 lation has increased in a ratio of one hundred and forty-five 
 per cent.; and in South Carolina, about thrge hundred per 
 cent. In the former State, the whites have increased in a 
 ratio of about thirty per cent. In the latter a little over 
 eighty per cent. Throughout, it will be found on examina- 
 tion, that within the period embraced by the census, being 
 forty years, the black population has increased within the 
 slave States, faster than the white, and comparing the slave 
 States with the free, that the total population increases in the 
 
ON SLAVERY. 133 
 
 latter -with far more rapidity than the former. The slave 
 States of this Union, at the last census, contained five mil- 
 lions of people, of which two were black. The free States 
 contained eight millions of whites. Eight to three, is the 
 proportion between the whites, in these two sections of the 
 United States. 
 
 It is in vain to say, that the tremendous difference already 
 indicated in the growth of Virginia and New York, was the 
 result of the soil of Virginia. That her lowlands are poor 
 and exhausted. They were not always so. One hundred 
 years ago, and Virginia below the mountains, was the most 
 desirable portion of America. Her condition in 1790, proves 
 how much she had been preferred, and how vastly she had 
 gotten the start of all the colonies. Her present poverty and 
 exhaustion, are the result of the system of slave cultivation — 
 the most slovenly and the least productive of any. The skill- 
 ful and prudent husbandry which has made the rocky and 
 inhospitable regions of New England, adequate to the support 
 of two millions of people, would have preserved the plains of 
 Old Virginia in their original fertility. But the reason, such 
 as it is, can not apply to Kentucky. Compare her with Ohio 
 or Indiana. She, too, has her mineral mountains — her sealed 
 up fountains of wealth — her thousand sources of capital un- 
 opened — but who shall say that her soil is exhausted. " Here 
 grain, and flower, and fruit, gush from the earth until the land 
 runs o'er." Yet compare her, all lovely as she is, with Ohio, 
 in all the elements of social strength and political power,, and 
 tell me the result and the reason? Whether, then, we com- 
 pare the planting with the grain-growing States, or the grain- 
 growing States with each other; throw but this ingredient of 
 slavery into the one, and I care not whether they be equal 
 in all other respects, or whether the slave State has every 
 other advantage, the fatal influence of this poison is imme- 
 diately perceived. In 1790, Ohio was a wilderness. In 1840, 
 if her population bear the same proportion to ours that her 
 votes do, she triples us in people, and numbers two millions. 
 The tolls from her canals amount to $504,306 — about double 
 
134 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 our whole revenue. Her representation in Congress will be 
 in proportion to her people. But why compare her with 
 Kentucky? With the restless and unpausing energy which be- 
 longs to a community entirely free, she has passed us long 
 since. She will now take her station, third in the Union, and 
 Virginia, who twenty years ago stood first in power and 
 place — Virginia, the nursery of Presidents, the mother of 
 States, the proud, the chivalric, must yield up her honors, 
 and quietly fall in the rear of this creation of yesterday. 
 Verily, these same " Goths and Vandals" — the free mechanics 
 and artisans, the object of Mr. Wickliffe's classic horror — are 
 the most renowned of conquerors. " No dangers daunt them, 
 and no labors tire." They cut through mountains — they hew 
 down forests — they build up cities — ^they connect the ocean 
 with the lakes, the lakes with the rivers — they conquer time 
 and space — they subject nature, throughout all her kingdoms 
 and in all her elements, to the uses of men, and men multiply 
 and population bounds forward, to meet and enjoy the sup- 
 plies thus furnished by "their victorious industry." A compa- 
 rison of the history and progress of the States of this Union, 
 leaves no doubt of the fact that, in all that constitutes great- 
 ness and power in a community — ^in wealth, in population, in 
 industry, in fiscal resources to the government, in multiplied 
 employments, and extended and difiused comforts and intelli- 
 gence among the great mass of the people — I say, there is 
 no doubt that, in all these particulars, the advance of the free 
 States has been wonderfully the most rapid, and the distance 
 is widening at every observation that is - taken. I have 
 ascribed it to negro slavery. What other circumstance is 
 there that is peculiar to the one section of the Union, to 
 which this remarkable diSerence in progressive power can be 
 ascribed? If we would examine philosophically into the pro- 
 cess of production, the sources of wealth, and the principles 
 of population, we would doubtless, find the principle here, as 
 in every thing else, to correspond with and explain the fact. 
 
 I have run out these papers to such unreasonable length, 
 that I have not room to trace the modus operandi of slavery 
 
ON SLAVERY. 135 
 
 through all its details. That the law of 1833, combined with 
 other circumstances, has had a tendency to check its advance 
 in Kentucky, and to keep it stationary for the last ten years, 
 is admitted by the enemies of the law, and proven by the 
 statistics of the country. That the repeal of that law would 
 give a stupendous impulse to its increase, is equally admitted 
 and desired, by those who seek its repeal, and is too obvious 
 for argument. Between these opposite views of policy the 
 country must decide. There are persons who say they desire 
 a modification of the law, so as to permit citizens of the 
 State to introduce slaves for their own use, but still to pro- 
 hibit their importation as merchandize. This appears to me 
 to be trifling with the subject. If it be the policy of Ken- 
 tucky, to prevent, so far as she may, by legislation, the 
 increase of slaves within her borders, without violating the 
 constitutional rights of master^ and emigrants, then the law, 
 as it stands, is adapted to the policy. If that be not her 
 policy, why then repeal it altogether. Where is the difference 
 between permitting every body that wants slaves to introduce 
 them for their own use, and permitting traders to bring them 
 in for sale? The traders would bring them in for the use of 
 the citizens, and would bring in no more than would be pur- 
 chased for such use. Prohibit the trader from selling, but 
 allow the citizen who desires it to import, and he will appoint 
 the trader his agent to import for him, and pay him a com- 
 mission, instead of buying from him. "We wUl be thrown 
 back upon the law of 1815, which had no effect at all. If 
 the law of 1833 had been passed in 1800, and enforced, 
 Kentucky, without violating the vested rights of any body, 
 would have so reduced the evil, that it would have terminated 
 of itself, or could have been easily done by the act of the 
 masters, or the purchase by the Commonwealth. But Mr. 
 Wickliffe styles me an abolitionist. He calls slavery a bless- 
 ing. Will the slaveholders in Kentucky answer his appeal, 
 and fall in with his reasoning? Will they repeal this statute 
 — call a convention of the slave States — break down all 
 restrictions on the free importation of slaves from every point 
 
136 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 of the compass, where slavery lies ? Mississippi has overtraded 
 herself in slaves — shall she throw back her excess upon us? 
 And will the slaveholders do this — not to advance their 
 wealth — not to improve the face of their country — not to in- 
 troduce new, branches of industry — not to invite skill, intelli- 
 gence, and capital, and improvement, social, moral, or phy- 
 sical — but to keep out manufacturers, and mechanics, and 
 artisans? Will they bring in the vicious, degraded, brutal, 
 unproductive, and unimprovable African slave, from Virginia 
 and Carolina? — a race which has brought down upon those 
 States the double curses of weakness and d?i'nger — a race from 
 which Virginia would have extricated herself while it was yet 
 possible, if she had been permitted — a race which was in- 
 flicted and riveted upon her by a foreign tyrant ere she was 
 yet free? — will they bring them here as an ally and an in- 
 strument, by which to lower the wages of labor, when those 
 very wages are the highest indication of an advancing society 
 and an improving condition, and the surest means in the 
 power of the State of retaining her citizens within her bosom, 
 of stopping the tide of emigration, and alluring back its cur- 
 rent? Will they enlist the African race to keep out and to 
 drive out their own ? And for what are they, persuaded to do 
 this unnatural thing? To render themselves and their pro- 
 perty more secure against the attacks of the abolitionists. 
 Is South Carolina more secure with her 315,000 slaves to 
 266,000 citizens? If, as Mr. Wickliffe charges, the British 
 Government is leagued with the Abolitionists to destroy the 
 tenure of slavery by force, is it a wise measure of defense to 
 increase the number of that domestic foe, till it exceeds your 
 own? The idea and the argument appear to me to border on 
 madness. Abolitionist I am none, and Mr. Wickliffe knows 
 it. On the only occasion when that subject was ever fairly 
 before the Government of Kentucky, I was in the Legislature 
 and Mr. Wickliffe knows well the part I played then. The 
 trial of Mahon disclosed the fact that there was a regular 
 plan of operations, and band of agents, in Ohio, for the abduc- 
 tion of our slaves from the river counties. When that fact 
 
ON SLAVEKY. 137 
 
 "was laid before the Kentucky Legislature, no man there 
 pressed more earnestly for the sending a special commission 
 to Ohio, with a demand that she should legislate in such 
 manner as to protect our property, and punish her citizens 
 for its violation. The commission was sent, and she did 
 legislate to our entire satisfaction. No power on earth, with 
 my consent^ should interfere with the internal regulations or 
 policy of my native State. 
 
 The session of 1833 was the first of my service in the 
 councils of the State. I had occasion that winter to observe 
 with some attention the principles and the policy of the 
 Senator from Fayette. How he came to vote for the law 
 prohibiting the importation of slaves, I am at a loss to con- 
 jecture. It certainly was not of a piece with the rest of his 
 policy then, or with his course and his objects since. The 
 situation of the dominant party in the Legislature, the party 
 to which I belonged, was very peculiar. General Jackson 
 had just been elected, for his second term, to the Presidency 
 of the United States. The majority in Kentucky was de- 
 cidedly against him. The quarrel of South Carolina with 
 the General Government had reached its crisis. The conven- 
 tion of that State, at Columbia, had passed its ordinance. 
 The Executive had transmitted a copy to our Government, 
 with an address to the States, which was laid before our Le- 
 gislature. The principles set forth in that ordinance and that 
 address, are familiar to the world. The doctrines that the 
 Constitution of the United States was not a form of govern- 
 ment founded by, and operating immediately upon, the people 
 themselves — that there was no direct relation of government 
 and citizens, of allegiance and protection, between the indivi- 
 duals in the several States and the Federal authorities — that, 
 in truth, there was no such people as the people of the Uni- 
 ted States, but that the Constitution of the Union was a com- 
 pact between the States in their political capacity — a treaty 
 between independent sovereigns — of which each, of course, 
 was to be the judge as to the extent of the obligations it im- 
 posed, and as to the cases of its infraction, formed the ground- 
 
138 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 ■work which supported the right to nullify. The States were 
 informed that if the tariff was not modified to suit the views 
 of Soiith Carolina, or if any attempt should be made to force 
 it upon her, she would secede, and that would be a signal 
 of general dissolution. Kentucky, it was stated, would, of 
 course, go with her, since she would surely not "continue to 
 pay a tribute of fifty per cent, upon her consumption, to the 
 northern States, for the privilege of being united to them ; 
 when she could receive all her supplies through the ports of 
 South Carolina without paying a single cent, of tribute." The 
 Legislature of Kentucky responded, in a report and resolu- 
 tions, in which are repudiated the power of nullifying an act 
 of Congress by any State, together with all the reasoning 
 upon ■which it ■was claimed. The very comfortable invitation 
 to cheapen our consumption by dissolving the Union, and 
 receiving our supplies through the port of Charleston, was 
 declined, for various reasons. 
 
 The Senator from Fayette, in a speech, which occupied 
 seventeen close printed columns of the Commonwealth, as- 
 sailed the principles of the Kentucky report and resolutions — 
 abused General Jackson like a good whig, but maintained the 
 construction given by South Carolina to the Constitution — ^in 
 short, showed himself opposed to any expression on our part 
 of disapprobation of her course, and voted against the report 
 and resolutions. Notwithstanding the Senator's kindness, or 
 at least indulgence, to the nullifiers, and his argument to show 
 that the eastern trade, and our commercial connection with 
 the north were a ruinous business to us, and that our true 
 market was the south, he still was a most devoted friend to 
 the tariif. The next proposition from South Carolina, on 
 which Mr. Wickliife and myself were called to act, as mem- 
 bers of the same Legislature, was to create a Bank, common 
 to four States, and as many more as could be brought into 
 the arrangement — the controlling power to be at Charleston, 
 and a branch in each of the States parties to the charter. I 
 regarded this as part and parcel of a system of policy, which 
 was to prevent the reestablishment of the national authority 
 
ON SliAVEEY. , 139 
 
 over the currency, by enlisting as many States as possible in 
 a sort of banking confederacy, with which the establishment 
 of a truly national institution would, of course, interfere. 
 That, indeed, was the avowed object in a report made by Col. 
 Memminger to the South Carolina Legislature just before he 
 started to Kentucky. The Senator from Fayette argued that 
 this branch would have the same beneficial e£Fect upon the 
 exchange, which the Bank of the United States had. That 
 there was no longer any hope of seeing that institution re- 
 vived, and that we ought to adopt the best substitute we 
 could. While I am writing these papers, a resolution has 
 been before the Senate of Kentucky requesting, upon the part 
 of Kentucky, the establishment of a United States Bank. 
 The Senator from Fayette takes the ground that all the con- 
 fusion and disasters which befell our currency and banks, 
 from 1816 to 1820, was attributable to the old United States 
 Bank — that the same results would occur again, etc. So inti- 
 mately are the several parts of his system connected in his 
 own mind, that in speaking upon this resolution, he recurs to 
 the nullifying ordinance of 1833, re-denounces the report of 
 the Legislature, which he had then opposed, intimates that 
 the author was a federalist, although every body in both 
 Houses adopted the report, but himself and two others, and 
 assails Mr. Clay for compromising the tariff. Some persons 
 consider all this as inconsistent and unintelligible. It does 
 not strike me in this light. I have been a close observer of 
 Mr. Wickliffe for a length of time, and upon a series of 
 measures. His mind and his policy are indeed " a mighty 
 maze, but not without a plan." To defend the ordinance of 
 South Carolina nullifying the tariff, and at the same time to 
 be a warm protective tariff man, looks a little odd. To abuse 
 General Jackson's proclamation at the top of his speed and 
 with the most unmeasured violence, and to defend the ordi- 
 nance, may not seem so strange ; but, at the same time, to 
 denounce Mr. Clay for his compromise, by which South Caro- 
 lina was appeased, and General Jackson robbed, as Mr. 
 Wickliffe thought, of his prey, seems to some persons utterly 
 
140 T. p. MAESHALL. 
 
 unaccountable. I have put it altogether, and added thereto 
 the argument on the " negro law." 
 
 South Carolina v.owed, in the face of men and Heaven, that, 
 unless the tariff was modified, she would secede, and that 
 Kentucky would go along with her. Well, Mr. Wickliffe vin- 
 dicates her right to do so, and proves, or at least tries to 
 prove, that Kentucky's interest lies with the south, and that 
 her eastern connections are ruinous ; but, at the same time, is 
 for screwing up the tariff to the highest notch, and is in a 
 perfect fury with Mr. Clay for letting it down to the Carolina 
 standard. Now this either means that Mr. Wickliffe wishes 
 Carolina to be driven out of the Union, and Kentucky to go 
 along with her, or it is the arrantest nonsense that ever fell 
 under my observation. Mr. Wickliffe thinks that a branch of 
 the Charleston Bank, located in Kentucky, would bring more 
 capital into th(e country — not injure our stocks in the least — 
 have the most beneficial influence upon our commerce and 
 currency — but that a Bank of the United States would play 
 the wild with every thing, as it did once before. If this does 
 mean that the authority of the General Grovernment over the 
 currency, at least so far as the south and southwestern States 
 are concerned, should be transferred to South Carolina, then 
 I confess it is utterly inexplicable. Lastly, Mr. Wickliffe 
 thinks that the slaves should be equalized between Kentucky 
 and South Carolina; and those everlasting objects of his hate 
 and execration — the free mechanics and manufacturers of the 
 north — kept out of Kentucky; that a convention of the slave 
 States should be called to concert measures, etc. Now what 
 does this mean ? 
 
 To each and all of the Senator's plans I have been opposed. 
 For years I have looked to the restoration and exercise of 
 the just powers of the General Government over the subjects, 
 peculiarly committed to its charge by the Constitution, with 
 anxious hope. I have anticipated therefrom order in the 
 finances, and stability in the currency. Such a system of 
 duties, or tariff, if you please, as will wipe off the present 
 debt of the national treasury, and furnish an abundant reve- 
 
ON SLAVEEY. 141 
 
 nue for national objects independent of the proceeds of the 
 sales of public lands, will enable the latter fund to be distri- 
 buted among the States, to which I think they are in all 
 justice entitled. Pending the rage of parties and the suspen- 
 sion of all beneficial action upon the part of the General 
 Government upon the currency, I have struggled hard against 
 excessive banking in Kentucky, though I have sustained, so 
 far as my humble abilities and limited influence would go, the 
 character and the credit of the institutions of that kind which 
 we were in some measure forced to establish. While in the 
 councils of my native State, through a very remarkable and 
 diflScult political era, I have kept my eye fixed steadily upon 
 the national authority as the only point of political contact 
 between the States of this Union. I have resisted every thing 
 that looked like interference from any quarter, with our inter- 
 nal policy, and every effort to entangle us in alliances with 
 other States. I have seen Kentucky, through a period of 
 eight years, maintain a just and wise moderation upon sub- 
 jects which seemed to have run other States mad. Her 
 currency is sound, her credit unimpaired, I hope, her public 
 debt not at all alarming, and her taxes insignificant. Poised 
 on her own brave center, she has beaten off both abolitionists 
 and nullifiers. She fears neither, and abhors both. May she 
 pursue and maintain her own internal and settled policy, with- 
 out reference to any judgment, opinions, or interest, save her 
 own, is the prayer of one who loves her well, and has tried 
 to serve her faithfully. 
 
142 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 SPEECH ON THE RESOLUTIONS TO CENSUEE 
 JOHN aUINCY ADAMS, 
 
 Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United StalM^aniiary 2-5, 26, 
 and 28, 1842 
 
 The question beiijg on the proposition of Mr. Gilmer, of 
 Virginia, which was in these words: 
 
 "Resolved; That, in presenting to the consideration of this House a petition 
 ■for thje dissolution of the Union, the member from Massachusetts, Mr. 
 Adams, has justly incurred the censure of this House." 
 
 Mr. Marshall, of Kentucky, rose and addressed the Spea- 
 ker as follows : 
 
 Mr. Speaker: I have prepared resolutions with a very 
 shoBt premable, but going somewhat more at large into the 
 subject than is done in the proposition of the gentleman from 
 Virginia. I wish to propose them as a substitute for that 
 gentleman's resolution, and I hope that he will assent to it. 
 As the resolutions are drawn in my own handwriting, and as 
 there are alterations and interlineations in the manuscript, 
 with the permission of the House, in order that the gentleman 
 may judge whether he will accept what I offer in lieu of his 
 own, I will read it in my place, rather than send it to the 
 clerk's table. 
 
 Mr. Marshall then read the following: 
 
 "Wheeeas, the Federal Constitution is a permanent foi-m of government 
 and of perpetual obligation, until altered or modified in the mode pointed 
 out by that instrument; and the members of this House, deriving their 
 political character and powers from the same, are sworn to support it; 
 and the dissolution of the Union necessarily implies the destruction of 
 that instrument, the overthrow of the American Republic, and the extinc- 
 tion of our national existence: A proposition, therefore, to the represen- 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIONS. 143 
 
 tatives of the people, to dissolve the organic law framed by their con- 
 stituents, and to support which they are commanded by those constituents 
 to be sworn, before they can enter upon the execution of the political 
 powers created by it, and intrusted to them, is a high breach of privilege j 
 u, contempt offered to this House; a direct proposition to the Legislature, 
 and each member of it, to commit perjury; and involves, necessarily, in 
 its execution and its consequences, the destruction of our country and the 
 crime of high treason. 
 
 Resolved, there/ore, That the Hon. John Q. Adams, a member from Mas- 
 sachusetts, in presenting for the consideration of the House of Kepresen- 
 tatives of the United States, a petition praying the dissolution of the- 
 Union, has offlred the deepest indignity to the House of which he is a 
 member ; an insult to the people of the United States, of which that House' 
 is the legislative organ ; and will, if this outrage be permitted to pass 
 unrebuked and unpunished, have disgraced his country, through their 
 representatives, in the eyes of the whole world. 
 
 Resolved, farther, That the aforesaid John Q. Adams, for this insult, the 
 first of the kind ever offered to the government, and for the wound which 
 he has permitted to be aimed, through his instrumentality, at the Consti- 
 tution and existence of his country, the peace, the security, and liberly 
 of the people of these States, might well be held to merit expulsion from 
 the national councils; and the House deem it an act of grace and mercy, 
 when they only inflict upon him their severest censure for conduct so 
 utterly unworthy of his past relations to the State, and his present posi- 
 tion. This they hereby do, for the maintenance of their own purity and 
 dignity ; for the rest, they turn him over to his own conscience and the 
 indignation of alj true American citizens." 
 
 Mr. Marshall resumed: I am very well aware, sir, and 
 had, before I drew these resolutions, maturely considered of 
 all I should expose myself to by submitting them ; and if I 
 am at all acquainted with my own temper, or with the move- 
 ments of my own mind and heart, I have , been induced to 
 take a position of this kind by no personal feeling toward the 
 gentleman upon whom it is proposed to inflict the censure of 
 this House, still less by any sectional feeling against that 
 portion of the United States which he represents on this 
 floor ; and, sir, it is of the last importance to the course I am 
 now pursuing, a course which involves heavy responsibilities, 
 that I should he free from all such motives. From the short 
 time I have had a place on this floor, it can scarcely be 
 charged against me that I have ever manifested any hostility 
 to the northern portion of our fellow-citizens. The policy 
 
144 T. F. MAE8HALL. 
 
 which I have advocated here — in advance, too, of the ques- 
 tion — has looked to the protection and promotion of their 
 peculiar industry. Toward the gentleman himself, the history 
 of the past, and my personal bearing to him here, will absolve 
 me from the suspicion of being actuated by personal hostility. 
 His name and the name of his family have been connected in 
 political history and administration with that which I bear; 
 and I devoted the first warm years of my manhood in earnest 
 endeavors to support the gentleman himself for the first office 
 within the gift of this great people — an office which, if the 
 proposition I am now animadverting upon be carried into 
 iefiect, will be terminated with the existence of the nation, 
 over whom the gentleman and the gentleman's father have 
 been heretofore called to preside. Whatever feelings of per- 
 sonal bitterness may exist in the gentleman's bosom toward 
 ■other portions of the slave States, — however deep the cause 
 he may have for that determined spirit of hate and vengeance 
 toward them, which seems to actuate him on this floor, — he 
 should entertain no such feelings against me, or at least there 
 is nothing in my past conduct to warrant them. 
 
 Within the last few days, scenes have been enacted in this 
 hall, which have presented the American Congress to the 
 world in a point of view equally discreditable to themselves 
 and to the country, and which bring crowds to the galleries 
 to witness the termination of what I have heard denominated 
 by the crowd in the streets, " the row in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives." Even in such scenes, in which the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts has been the prime actor, my conduct 
 toward him has been marked by courtesy and kindness. Sir, 
 I moved to give him the opportunity of defending himself 
 .against the charges contained in a petition which he presented, 
 praying his removal from the chair of the Committee on For- 
 eign Relations. I repeat it, sir, that courtesy, personal 
 ■courtesy and kindness toward that gentleman, have distin- 
 guished me, from the commencement of my services in Congress 
 to this hour. But, sir, when a proposition so monstrous as 
 this is made, and that too in the midst of the difficulties, em- 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIONS. 145 
 
 barrassments, and confusion, in which our public affairs are 
 involved, and all the sources of popular discontent we see 
 around us — a proposition calling upon the members of this 
 House to betray the trust solemnly confided to them by the 
 people, violate their oaths, and destroy a constitution which 
 they are bound by every consideration of honor, conscience, 
 and patriotism, to support and defend, — it strikes me with 
 horror, and exhausts my patience. That there may exist out 
 of this House men under the influence of a fanaticism, wild 
 enough and mad enough to nourish such a project, or urge 
 such a petition, I do believe, and did hope they were few 
 and contemptible; but that there was a member on this floor 
 who could be willing to assume the responsibility, through all 
 coming time, of presenting to the government of the United 
 States a proposition to terminate its own existence, I had not 
 believed. I had indeed heard it whispered that such a 
 memorial would be presented, but I rejected the idea with 
 utter incredulity and perfect scorn. 
 
 Now, it may be said, and perhaps has been said, that the 
 petition is worthy only of contempt ; and that the Congress 
 of the United States should pass over this insult without no- 
 tice. To this view of the matter I can not give my assent. 
 Holding this Union, as I do, to be the only pledge for, and 
 the only means of, perpetuating the liberties of the people, — 
 holding this Union, as I do, in a most especial manner, as 
 the only means under high heaven by which that State in 
 which I live, and that people whom I represent, can be pre- 
 served in safety and independence, — there is, in my judgment, 
 sacrilege in approaching it in this manner. Coming from any 
 quarter, it is sacrilege. Coming from the quarter it does, it 
 assumes a political importance which it would not otherwise 
 possess. He, sir, through whom the proposition is made to 
 pull down the temple of liberty, was once its high priest, and 
 ministered at its altar. It is no obscure hand, and no obscure 
 name which is connected with this procedure. That name has 
 gone abroad, and must go down to posterity in permanent 
 connection with our country's history. The enemies of free- 
 
146 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 dom, who have so fondly predicted the dismemberment of this 
 confederacy, have now their eyes turned to the movements 
 of this hall, and to the movements of this gentleman, in rela- 
 tion to a question which, of all others, presents the greatest 
 danger to our institutions. And this question, regarded by 
 our rivals and enemies abroad as the thorn in the side of the 
 giant republic — a thorn which is to rankle and fester till, in 
 their judgment, it will ultimately divide and destroy — this is 
 the very question which that gentleman has been fonder of 
 stirring than all others ; which he nurses, indeed, to the ex- 
 clusion of all others. This subject, however, does not enter, 
 in the remotest degree, into the paper I have offered. God 
 forbid that I should draw a line which is to array the south- 
 ern men on one side, and the northern on the other. Surely, 
 surely, the north is bound by love of country to oppose the 
 memorial presented by the gentleman from Massachusetts, as 
 strenuously as the south. Are northern men prepared to say 
 that, under any law or right, petitions of this sort shall be 
 laid before the Congress of the United States without censure 
 or rebuke? — that a member shall be allowed to present a 
 question here, and start it as a subject of legislative consid- 
 eration in this House, which looks to the dissolution of the 
 Union? But I am told here, that, at the time this proposi- 
 tion was presented, there was connected with it another — that 
 the committee to which it was proposed to refer it, should 
 report the reasons why the prayer of the petitioners should 
 not be granted. In my humble judgment, this does not affect 
 the question ; or, if it does, it makes the case worse. If, un- 
 der some fancied right of petition, extending to subjects over 
 which the party petitioned has neither jurisdiction nor con- 
 trol, and to which, though they can be neither granted nor 
 acted upon, so much importance seems to be attached in one 
 portion of the Union, the gentleman had barely presented the 
 petition, in fulfillment of what he believed to be a solemn duty, 
 it might alter the case : but here it was proposed to be made 
 the subject of legislative consideration, and that a report 
 should be prepared and presented to the House in accordance 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIO>rS, 147 
 
 ■with the views of the mover. It was to become a precedent, 
 as far as it went, amounting to this : that the dissolution of 
 the Union was a fair subject of legislative consideration, and 
 could be brought up in this House, in the shape of a report, 
 for discussion. It was to be a debatable question here — it 
 ■was a matter to be regarded by the legislator as within the 
 scope of his ordinary futictions ; and this position I would 
 meet at the threshold, with the sternest possible rebuke. I 
 know that the action of this House, on this subject, will go 
 abroad to the nations of the world ; and I wish it to be shown 
 that, whatever of mischief, and misery, and confusion, may 
 come upon us in after years, at this time of day the Congress 
 of the United States will not permit one of its members to 
 become the vehicle of a proposition so monstrous, that it can 
 not be acted on without dishonor to themselves, or carried 
 into effect without ruin and crime. Thus much I have thought 
 proper to say in presenting the resolutions. If there be wrong, 
 or injustice, or falsehood in them, let the responsibility fall, 
 without shield or mitigation, on my bare head. That mischief 
 can follow what truth and justice and our own dignity most 
 clearly indicate, I can not believe. I do not harbor the idea 
 that the general sentiment of the north can approve the 
 movement which I have asked you to censure with so much 
 severity. What! Massachusetts — of all the lands o'er which 
 heaven's free sun flings his radiant smile — Massachusetts 
 to come forward, and, through a man bearing the name 
 which this gentleman does, make a proposition to dissolve the 
 Union ! 
 
 Mr. Adams, after having spoken at some length in reply 
 to the foregoing, the next day made a question of order, 
 " whether the House has the right to entertain this resolution, 
 because it charges him with crimes of which this House has 
 no jurisdiction ; and because, if the House entertain the juris- 
 diction, they deprive him of rights secured to him by the 
 Constitution of the United States." Mr. Adams relied mainly 
 on the sixth article of the amended constitution, securing, in 
 
148 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 criminal prosecutions, the right of trial by jury. In reply, 
 Mr. Marshall spoke as follows : 
 
 Mr. Speaker : The gentleman charges me with entire igno- 
 rance of law. I confess, sir, that I am not so profound a 
 jurist as I could desire, or as I ought to be. I can inform 
 the gentleman, however, that were I inclined to hold him to 
 strict law, it is too late for him to file his dilatory plea to th« 
 jurisdiction, after having entered his defense to the merits 
 and proceeded at some length in his argument. I waive, 
 however, all technical objections, and give him the full benefit 
 of his plea in abatement. In the question now made, there 
 are two points to be considered : one a matter of fact, the 
 other of law. The gentleman has assumed, in the first place, 
 that the resolutions charge him with subornation of perjury 
 and high treason, and that he is on trial here for those 
 ofienses. A very superficial examination of the resolutions, 
 I think, will satisfy any one that the gentleman is mistaken 
 in point of fact. He is not charged with either of those 
 oifenses. It is charged, in the preamble, that a proposition 
 " to the representatives of the people, to dissolve the organip 
 law framed by their constituents, and to support which they 
 are commanded by those constituents to be sworn, before they 
 can enter upon the execution of the political powers created 
 by it, and intrusted to them, is a high breach of privilege ; a 
 contempt ofiered to this House ; a direct proposition to the 
 Legislature, and each member of it, to commit perjury; and 
 involves, necessarily, in its execution and its consequences, 
 the destruction of our country and the crime of high treason." 
 
 Now this petition was not drawn by the gentleman, nor is 
 he charged with drawing it. 
 
 Mr. Adams here asked. Why am I to be punished for it? 
 
 Mr. Marshall resumed: Because, as a member of this 
 
 House, the gentleman has permitted himself to be used as a 
 
 vehicle by which a petition, involving within itself the propo- 
 
 >sition here set forth, was offered to the representative body 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTION. 149 
 
 of the nation; and the charge against the gentleman, of 
 offense against the privileges of this body, for which I have 
 ventured to arraign him, was not that he had petitioned for 
 this object, or sanctioned the prayer of the petition; because 
 the journal showed that he had, at the same time, moved 
 that the committee report the reasons why the prayer of the 
 petition should not be granted. The gist of the charge was, 
 that the petition was offered ; the ground of the contempt to the 
 House is, that the gentleman, knowing its contents, has laid 
 before them from others a proposition offensive and insulting, 
 as inviting the House to do that which amounts to a violation 
 of their official oaths. It is not charged, even, that the peti- 
 tioners are guilty of treason ; nor that the act of Congress 
 which they seek would amount to treason ; but that the 
 execution of that act, and the consequences, to wit: the 
 overthrow of the constitution, must needs be attended by the 
 commission of treason some where. Now, sir, this is the only 
 fair interpretation of the preamble. Indeed, sir, the gentle- 
 man's name does not appear in it; nor is it found any where 
 in connection with perjury or treason. 
 
 Mr. Adams again interrupted: The charge is involved in 
 the resolution. 
 
 Mr. Marshall: God knows in what crimes the gentleman 
 may involve himself before he gets through this matter. He 
 is, however, only charged by me with the presentation of a 
 petition, the nature and consequences of which are set forth 
 in the preamble. Here is the resolution, and the charge 
 against the gentleman : 
 
 "Resolved, therefore, That the Hon. John Quinct Adams, a member from 
 Massachusetts, in presenting, for the consideration of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives of the United States, a petition praying the dissolution of the 
 Union, has offered the deepest indignity to the House of which he is a mem- 
 ber; an insult to the people of the United States, of which that House is the 
 legislative organ; and will, if this outrage be permitted to pass unrebuked 
 and unpunished, have disgraced his country, through their representatives) 
 in the eyes of the whole world. 
 
150 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 'S Resolved, farther, That the aforesaid John Q. Adams, for this insult, the 
 first of the kind ever offered 'to the government, and for the wound which he 
 has permitted to be aimed, through his instrumentality, at the constitution 
 and existence of his country, the peace, the security, and liberty of the people 
 of these States, might well be held to merit expulsion from the national coun- 
 cils; and the House deem it an act of grace and mercy, when they only 
 inflict upon him their severest censure for conduct so utterly unworthy of 
 his past relations to the state, and his present position. This they hereby 
 do, for the maintenance of their own purity and dignity; for the rest, they 
 turn him over to his own conscience and the indignation of all true Ameri- 
 can citizens.' 
 
 But were it otherwise, and were the gentleman really 
 charged, and really guilty of subornation of perjury and high 
 treason, it is in no sense true that this House is usurping the 
 province of a jury. Nor is this a criminal prosecution, within 
 the meaning of the article quoted and relied on by the gen- 
 tleman. The consequences of the trial here had, and the 
 nature of the judgment to be rendered by this House, are 
 not, on the one hand, an acquittal from the crime, so as to bar 
 indictment and trial before the proper tribunals ; nor, on the 
 other, to inflict the legal penalties appointed for the crimes 
 supposed to be charged. This House tries only the oflFense 
 against itself, and punishes under its own law — the law of 
 parliament. Does the gentleman contend, or will any one 
 believe, that the contempt merges in the felony; or that this 
 House must summon a jury to find the facts, or turn the party 
 over to the courts of law, before they can proceed to inquire 
 into violations of their own privileges? Should one member 
 maim or slay another on this floor, without excuse or justifi- 
 cation, he would be indictable : does it therefore follow that 
 we could neither censure nor expel? And if we could do 
 either, does it not follow that we can inquire into the facts 
 upon which our judgment is to be rendered ? And does that 
 inquiry, or that judgment, in the slightest degree encroach 
 upon the party's right to a trial by jury, when the penalties 
 affixed to his oifense by the municipal law are to be inflicted? 
 If it were so, a member need only commit a felony, to be 
 exempt from the censure of this House. I deny the gentle- 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 151 
 
 man's law as ■well as his fact. Treason against the United 
 States is not only an offense against the constitution, punish- 
 a.ble in the federal courts ; but it is a contempt, and the very- 
 highest contempt which a member could commit, against this 
 House. The House can punish, and must of course have the 
 right to inquire into the fact, with a view to punishment under 
 the law of parliament ; of which they are the judges, and the 
 sole judges ; of which courts and juries have no cognizance. 
 The gentleman has sneeringly told me that I never learned 
 my law from my uncle. From whatever source I may have 
 derived it, I must have read utterly in vain, if there be any 
 thing in the article to which the gentleman has referred which 
 can protect him, even if the charges were made, from the par- 
 liamentary inquiry; and, secondly, the gentleman must him- 
 self, by this time, perceive that neither in the preamble nor 
 resolution is a charge of either kind made against him. There 
 are but two matters involved in the charge against him as 
 subjects of inquiry : 1st. Did he present a petition to dissolve 
 the Union? and, 2d. Does that presentation amount to a con- 
 tempt? The preamble is simply a description of the petition 
 itself, and a declaration that it does invite the House to per- 
 jury. And does it not? Where, forsooth, did the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts learn his law? Not from his father, I am 
 sure. A petition to the Congress of the United States to dis- 
 solve the Union, to repeal the constitution by statute, and 
 they sworn to support it ! This law would cut a figure in the 
 Supreme Court, when the court itself, the constitution by which 
 its validity must be tested, nay, the legislature which passed 
 it, would, by its operation, be all annihilated. I see no mode 
 of executing such a statute, in the absence of all judicial 
 authority, save by force of arms; and the overthrow of the 
 constitution by force of arms, is high, nay, the highest con- 
 ceivable treason. If John Marshall, or the elder Adams, ever 
 thought the Union could be dissolved by act of Congress, I 
 have found no trace of it in their writings ; and if I had, I 
 confess my respect for both gentlemen would have essentially 
 diminished. But more of this hereafter. 
 
152 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 The House decided, against Mr. AdamS. The debate upon 
 the resolutions was resumed. Mr. Adams was defended by 
 Mr. Underwood of Kentucky, "Mr. Botts of Virginia, and 
 Mr. Arnold of Tennessee. Mr. Marshall, after great diffi- 
 culty, obtained the floor on Friday, January 28, the resolu- 
 tions being offered the Tuesday preceding, and made the 
 following reply to Messrs. Adams, Botts, Underwood, and 
 Wise. 
 
 Mr. Speaker : I have risen for the purpose of endeavoring 
 at least to extricate the proposition I have offered to the 
 House from all those matters extraneous, which have been so 
 assiduously attempted to be connected with it, as well by 
 those who are its avowed enemies, as by those who have pro- 
 fessed in argument to be its friends. The gentleman from 
 Massachusetts, and those who have addressed the House in 
 his defense, have pressed on its consideration the situation in 
 which he is placed here, by the charges said to be contained 
 in the resolutions I have had the honor to propose. But it 
 ought to be remembered that there is another trial yet to 
 come, in which I must stand as the accused party, at the bar 
 of public opinion. I have been well aware of the past ser- 
 vices, of the weight of character, of the dignity, of the learn- 
 ing, and of the important position of the honorable member 
 from Massachusetts, in this House and before the world. I 
 well know that that gentleman is placed at an almost infinite 
 distance from myself in personal importance and standing 
 before this country, from his age, his past reputation, and the 
 thousand memories that cling around his name. In this con- 
 test between the vigor of manhood and the trembling nerves 
 and hoary locks of an advanced, venerable, and honored old 
 age, the chivalrous sentiments and sympathies of this House 
 and of mankind will naturally lean to him. And I am pre- 
 cisely the more anxious, on that account, to place in its true 
 light before the country the course which, notwithstanding all 
 the circumstances which surround it, I have, from motives 
 which I deem adequate, deliberately chosen to pursue. And 
 
ADAMS EESOLUT-IONS. 153 
 
 here, sir, permit me to express my astonishment that, after 
 the debate which occurred here the other day upon the point 
 of order raised by the gentleman from Massachusetts, and 
 which, after full argument, had been decided against him by 
 the House, my colleague (Mr. Underwood) should have again 
 brought it forward, and in the manner which he did. How 
 is it possible that, with the preamble and resolutions before 
 him, my colleague could have contended that the member 
 from Massachusetts stood here charged by me with suborna- 
 tion of perjury and high treason ; or that those resolutions 
 any where intimate that the bare presentation of a petition to 
 dissolve the Union constitutes either of those crimes. I had, 
 indeed, been a worse lawyer than the gentleman from Massa- 
 chusetts has been pleased to represent me, could I have been 
 guilty of such absurdity. Before I sit down, I shall take an 
 opportunity to discuss the truth and propriety of the prin- 
 ciples contained in the preamble, in which alone it can be 
 pretended that I have involved the gentleman from Massa- 
 chusetts in the crimes which he alleges I have charged. 
 
 I mean not to abuse the patience of the House, by intro- 
 ducing or enlarging upon what is irrelevant to the subject ; 
 but, before I come to what is the real question, I must be 
 permitted to take a brief survey of what yesterday fell from 
 my friend from Virginia over the way (Mr. Wise). Of all 
 men on this floor — of all men living — I should be the last to 
 let the grounds on which that gentleman has placed the sub- 
 ject go before the country, as containing my views in relation 
 to it. Entertaining toward him — and I say this, not with 
 the view of screening what I now advance from the freest 
 course of animadversion by him or others, but in all serious- 
 ness and sincerity — entertaining toward the gentleman the 
 most perfect respect, and being, moreover, in our private and 
 personal relations and intercourse, not only on the most 
 friendly terms, but holding myself under personal obligations 
 to him for acts of kindness and courtesy extended to me out 
 of this House, whatever I shall say in regard to the gentle- 
 man's course here will be, in its bearings, purely political. 
 
154 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 While, then, I sever myself utterly from that gentleman's 
 political views, and from what I believe to be his political 
 objects, and without expressing any censure upon him for 
 those views — none whatever — the gentleman may be right, or 
 I may be right; the one is perhaps as likely as the other; 
 the country must judge between us — I mean here only to 
 say, that we are wide apart as the poles, and I fear shall 
 remain so. 
 
 Mr. Wise here explained. He had never meant to advo- 
 cate Mr. Marshall's resolutions : he had spoken on the 
 motion to print; and had risen to explain the reason why he 
 would not vote on Mr. Adams' case. The gentleman from 
 Kentucky need not premise his speech by disavowing his 
 willingness to have his proposition to rest on any grounds 
 taken by Mr. W. ; for he had not intended that what he said 
 on that occasion should be understood to have any thing to 
 do with it whatever. 
 
 Mr. Marshall resumed : I am very glad to hear this disa- 
 vowal upon the part of the gentleman, and am very thankful 
 that the fact stands as it does ; for, had the gentleman indeed 
 intended his speech as friendly to my proposition, I should 
 have been tempted to exclaim with the Spanish proverb, 
 " God, deliver me from my friends, and I wilt take care of 
 my enemies." I have read the report of the gentleman's 
 speech with great attention, (for it was impossible, from the 
 confusion during a part of its delivery, to hear all that he 
 had said,) and I find it will Still be necessary for me take a 
 very cursory review of what the gentleman advanced ; in 
 doing which, I shall take the liberty of condensing the speech 
 a little, which, as reported to the public, occupied, in all, 
 some seven columns of the National Intelligencer. Should I, 
 in this process of condensation, reduce the speech of the gen- 
 tleman to the form of distinct resolutions, they would amount 
 to about these : 
 
 1. Resolved, That the existence of slavery, as a political 
 institution, is essential to liberty and equality. 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 155 
 
 2. Resolved, That there has been, from the very foundation 
 of this government, an English anti-American party in this 
 country, led and headed by the house of Braintree, changing 
 its name at different periods, but steadily pursuing its object, 
 which is to bring back this country under the dominion of 
 England ; and that this is the grand principle of the northern 
 policy. 
 
 3. Resolved, That this faction was first crushed by Mr. 
 Jefferson; that having afterward somewhat revived, it was 
 prostrated a second time by General Jackson ; but that, still 
 retaining the principle of vitality, and now again appearing 
 with a new name, and the avowal of new objects, it will be 
 extinguished finally, if the whole South will unite and rally 
 under John Tyler against the entire North, supported as they 
 are by England, in this attack upon liberty and equality. 
 
 4. Resolved, That one of the schemes of this English party 
 to destroy this confederacy, is to establish a tariff, by which 
 English commerce is to be curtailed, a threatening rival raised 
 up in the North, the right arm of England (viz: her manu- 
 facturing industry and the power of her machinery) to be 
 palsied, and the northern States to be put up in her room as 
 the great customer, not only of our own country, but of the 
 ■rest of the world. 
 
 And this is the notable plan by which Great Britain is to 
 be conciliated, and, with her consequent aid, this Union is to 
 be dissolved ! Now, against the reasoning, at least, raised 
 upon this last statement of fact, I beg leave to enter my 
 dissent. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, of all the objects I may have had iii view in 
 offering the resolutions under discussion, certainly the very 
 last which could have entered into my imagination would have 
 been to revive here, and at a time like this, the bitter and 
 envenomed animosities of 1801. Those unhappy enmities 
 grew out of a state of the world, and of the politics of this 
 country, which exist no longer, and which never can exist 
 again. I can, of course, have no personal remembrance of 
 those days, since the year 1801 happened to be the very year 
 
156 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 in which I was born, and the troubles of that stormy era had 
 terminated before I was old enough to bear arms or to take 
 any active interest in politics. I hold myself accountable for 
 my own sins only, and not for those of a generation gone by. 
 All these matters are with me matters of history merely ; but, 
 for one, come weal come wo to me from the resolutions I have 
 offered, or the opinions I here express, I now enter my most 
 solemn disclaimer and unqualified denial of the proposition 
 that northern men, or that the party termed federalists — 
 whatever might have been their mistakes — ever were, as a 
 party, traitors to their country, or a banded faction conspir- 
 ing to bring us back to those very chains which they them- 
 selves — ay, they were the very men — which they themselves 
 had cut in two ; to rend which, they had pledged their lives, 
 their fortunes, and their sacred honor; had girded on their 
 swords, and never had sheathed them till they saw their conn- 
 try in liberty a,nd peace. They might in some things have 
 been mistaken ; the system of government which they had 
 constructed, and whence they derived their party designa- 
 tion, federalist, was as yet a sheer experiment. It went into 
 operation under an accumulation of disastrous circumstances 
 in our own internal condition: prostrate credit, ruined com- 
 merce, disordered finance, and a heavy public debt; — these 
 were the elements whence the federal constitution emerged, 
 and with which it had to contend in its first administra- 
 tion. It was precisely coeval, too, with the birth of a revo- 
 lution in the other hemisphere, which shook, in its earth- 
 quake progress, the whole frame of human society to its 
 deepest foundations. They might in some things have been 
 mistaken; but on the leading points of domestic policy espe- 
 cially, the whig party are the very last persons in this world 
 who ought to charge those men with having been political 
 traitors. Friends of England, to the injury or dishonor of 
 their own country, they never were. In the then existing 
 state of the world, when the balance of power in Europe was 
 utterly overthrown — when one vast military dynasty had risen 
 over the subjected and affrighted kingdoms around — when one 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 157 
 
 gigantic and commanding mind was wielding the entire mili- 
 tary force of the continent, and with as much ease as though 
 it were a willow wand — those men believed, devoutly and 
 sincerely believed, that the safety and independence of our 
 young republic were involved in the issue of the fierce struggle 
 going on in Europe. With the example of Switzerland and 
 Holland before their eyes, they shrunk from the imperial 
 embrace of France.' They maintained that it was not the 
 true policy of the United States to abandon her neutral posi- 
 tion, and aid in the destruction of that power whose navy at 
 that time formed the only counterpoise to the colossal strength 
 of Napoleon, — the only bar to the establishment of a universal 
 despotism in Europe, in comparison with which that of the 
 Csesars shrinks into insignificance. This had been their honest 
 belief. Their policy was condemned; and the question has 
 long been settled in the public judgment. The war which 
 ensued was popular; it raised our national character; it 
 served to develop the real arm of our national defense ; and 
 in its glorious termination were realized none of the fears of 
 the federal party. The success of the war accomplished their 
 fall. The overthrow of the French empire, and the restora- 
 tion of the political- equilibrium in Europe, and the return of 
 universal peace, were events which they most earnestly de- 
 sired. The reverse was what they feared and deprecated. 
 Had Russia and England fallen under the blow, and their 
 resources, naval and military, passed into the hands of the 
 greatest genius and the most daring and ambitious soldier the 
 world had yet seen, the result to our infant institutions is 
 matter of conjecture, thank God, and not of history. The 
 result of the war, although precisely what they desired, 
 accomplished their fall, and stamped the seal of popular 
 odium upon the name of that man whom the democratic party 
 and their great leader dreaded more than all the world. The 
 interpretation and defense of the constitution under which we 
 now live, as embodied in the Federalist, were mainly the pro- 
 duction of his mind, and still form the text-book for American 
 statesmen, lawyers, and judges. The measures recommended 
 
158 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 and the principles maintained by him in relation to the 
 foreign and domestic policy of the government he had so 
 signally aided to establish — the assumption and funding of 
 the revolutionary debts of the States; the full and faithful 
 payment of the public securities ; the administration of the 
 national finances, and the supply of a national currency and 
 commercial medium for the people, combining the solid credit 
 of the metals, with the lightness, facility of transmission, and 
 cheapness of paper, through the agency of a Bank of the 
 United States; a strict neutrality, and the encouragement of 
 a navy, with a view to its maintenance and the protection of 
 our commerce; the fostering care of American manufactures; 
 and, above all, the indissoluble union of these States under a 
 common government, having complete, national, and par- 
 amount authority over all, touching those things which are 
 common to all : — these are among the opinions he has left 
 recorded in his immortal works; and there is .abundant evi- 
 dence that they were formed in the school and ratified by the 
 judgment of that slaveholder whose sacred dust now reposes 
 within a few miles from this spot, in the soil of his native 
 Virginia, and on the banks of his own once loved Potomac. 
 Against the hated head of this great statesman and illustrious 
 man were hurled the whole thunders of a victorious and trium- 
 phant party; nor did they cease till the hand of one, now 
 branded in his country's history as a traitor, in an evil hour 
 had laid him low. Whatever may have been his errors, it 
 would be hard to convince me that one who had entered the 
 family of George Washington at the age of nineteen — who 
 had served with him for seven years, through all the soul- 
 trying scenes of the Revolution — who enjoyed his entire con- 
 fidence then, and continued so to enjoy it, that afterward, 
 when the leader of the Revolution became the civil head of 
 the republic he had founded, this same traitor was called by 
 him to preside over that department, the most embarrassed, 
 the most difficult, the most responsible; and his genius was 
 invoked and his judgment trusted to devise the means of 
 establishing credit, creating revenue, and reforming the most 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 159 
 
 I 
 
 debased currency ever employed in the transactions of man- 
 kind; and well did the first Secretary of the Treasury vin- 
 dicate the opinion his old leader had formed of him. And, 
 sir, when George Washington, after his retirement from civil 
 office, was again, and I believe in the last year of his life, 
 called on by his country to head her armies in a war then 
 expected with France, he stipulated, as the condition of his 
 acceptance, the right to name his officers; and he appointed 
 this same traitor-federalist, Alexander Hamilton, his second 
 in command ; — I repeat it : it would be most difficult to con- 
 vince me, with all my confidence in the sagacity, judgment, 
 acute discrimination of character, and untarnished honor of 
 George Washington, that there was treason in the heart of 
 one whom he reared, loved, and trusted throughout his glori- 
 *ous life. If admiration of this man's genius, sorrow for his 
 faults, and pity and regret for his untimely fate, be federalism 
 — I stand convicted. 
 
 That I may pursue the views of the gentleman from Vir- 
 ginia a little farther, I must here also declare, most explicitly, 
 that these resolutions were not offered with the most remote 
 intention or desire of rallying the southern portion of this 
 House, as a party, under any lead, or any administration, 
 present or prospective. Entirely the reverse ; such a design, 
 indeed, would be as fatal to their passage, as it is foreign to 
 their tone and character, and subversive of their object. There 
 is — at least, I trust there is — nothing sectional about them. 
 There is incorporated with them no dogma of any particular 
 school of politicians. They are guarded, carefully and pur- 
 posely guarded, from all connection with the questions of 
 agitation and strife, which so unhappily divide, and so readily 
 inflame, the sectional parties on this floor. They were brought 
 forward as purely American in their character, as a test of 
 how much American feeling exists in this body, and as afford- 
 ing to all who are actuated by it an opportunity of subscribing 
 here to what I conceive to be the indisputable principle of our 
 social fabric. Whatever may be their fate, I fondly hope that 
 
 agitators, whether from the North or South, may not be able 
 ' 11 
 
160 T. y. MARSHALL. 
 
 to drag the question down to a fierce party or personal quarrel, 
 ■which is to be decided by geographical lines, without reference 
 to the principle, and the only principle, involved in the reso- 
 lutions themselves. 
 
 Having said thus much as to what may be considered in 
 some sort foreign to the subject immediately before the House, 
 I proceed now to the matter in hand. And first, sir, as to the 
 nature of the defense here set up. The House has had four 
 speeches addressed to it in behalf of the gentleman from Mas- 
 sachusetts, some of which were most able and interesting. 
 After a touching description of the venerable age, the long 
 and important services, the weight of character, the talent, 
 the influence and power of the gentleman from Massachusetts, 
 and comments on the severity of the censure proposed to be 
 inflicted, it was argued that his real object had been to obtain 
 an opportunity of replying to the petitioners ; of producing a 
 State paper, the effect of which should be to stay these incen- 
 diary measures of discontent; and with all the power of his 
 eloquent pen, and all the vast resources of his mighty mind, 
 to repress, by the force of unanswerable argument, the wild 
 projects and headstrong purposes of those who desire to strike 
 at the Union; that the true design of the whole movement 
 has been a triumphant defense and vindication of the Ameri- 
 can Union, and such a reproof to those who have asked its 
 destruction, as will for ever seal their lips in silence; the pro- 
 duction of an argument which will satisfy all the world, rectify 
 the sentiments, and put down, at once and for ever, the designs 
 and purposes which have given birth to the memorial. This 
 has, in substance, been the defense set up, not by the gentle- 
 man from Massachusetts, but by the most eloquent of his 
 champions, (Mr. Botts.) Now, if this defense had been urged 
 before this House by the accused himself, — if he had so much 
 as breathed such a wish as has been ascribed to him by his 
 zealous and able advocate from Virginia — though by no means 
 convinced that even his motive could justify the deed, or that 
 this House should receive and tolerate such propositions, for 
 any purpose or on any considerations, I might possibly have 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIO^SrS. 161 
 
 been tempted to withdraw the resolutions. But, sir, I can not 
 consent to overlook the defense set up by the gentleman him- 
 self, and be thus turned over to what has been advanced for 
 him by others, upon their own authority. 
 
 What has the gentleman said ? As to what he may have 
 uttered in the irritation of the moment, against myself per- 
 sonally, it has gone by; my understanding and temper are 
 fixed upon things so much higher than aught which concerns 
 me individually, that matters of this sort make but slight im- 
 pression upon either. Although the gentleman from Massa- 
 chusetts has pronounced me not possessed of mind enough to 
 judge of the meaning of the constitution, or to comprehend 
 the definition of treason, (and the judgment of the gentleman 
 on such subjects is held by this House as entitled to great 
 weight ;) and although he has taunted me with being a mem- 
 ber of the temperance society, and kindly and humanely ven- 
 tured the hope that I would persevere in the pledge, coupled 
 with the suggestion that, in three years, 1 might so far recover 
 the understanding which God had conferred, as to be fit to 
 enter a law school ; and although the gentleman has further 
 said that I have admitted to him in private conversation that 
 his complaints of oppression under a refusal to receive peti- 
 tions of this sort were just; still, sir, — 
 
 Mr. Adams here interposed ; and the floor being yielded 
 for explanation, corrected the statement of Mr. Marshall, 
 by observing that what he had said was, that the gentleman 
 from Kentucky had admitted to him, in private conversation, 
 that he was a friend to the right of petition, and believed 
 abolition petitions ought to be received. 
 
 Mr. Marshall resumed: I am happy in being corrected. 
 But, sir, I have said nothing to the gentleman in private, 
 touching the reception of abolition petitions, or the repeal of 
 the twenty-first rule, which I have not said in argument upon 
 this floor. It is true, and the House know it to be so, that I 
 have taken/ the ground that the twenty-first rule should be 
 repealed, and the abolition memorials received and referred to 
 
162 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 a committee composed exclusively of northern men, with the 
 gentleman himself at their head; not as matter of right — 
 never; but for the purpose of quieting this eternal agitation 
 of the subject by the gentleman himself, by extracting a 
 report from northern statesmen, which should inform the 
 House and the South whether they meant to sustain here the 
 views, objects, and opinions of these fanatical incendiaries. 
 But to proceed. If the gentleman thinks, by these irritating 
 taunts, which no man better understands than himself, to 
 sting me from my propriety in this hall, or to provoke me 
 into unseemly and passionate retort, he little understands the 
 character of the man with whom he has to do, intemperate as 
 he may take him to be. He may in future, therefore, spare 
 himself the shame of indecorums unworthy of himself, if not 
 unjust to me. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the petition which has given rise to this pro- 
 ceeding is now on the table of the House. It prays the 
 national legislature to take the preliminary steps to a dissolu- 
 tion of this Union. What is the defense which the gentleman 
 Jias offered in bar of the censure for presenting such a docu- 
 ment here ? Two points have been made by the gentleman in 
 "his reply to my remarks upon introducing the resolutions, 
 first, the gentleman insisted upon the right of the petitioners 
 <to do this thing. They have a natural right to dissolve this 
 government, and to sever the union of these States, whenever 
 that union shall, m their opinion, be injurious or inconvenient 
 to themselves. And here he fortifies himself by the declara- 
 tion of American independence, in which the right of the 
 people to alter or abolish their form of government is enume- 
 rated among the self-evident truths in politics, and as one of 
 the original and indestructible rights of mankind. And, in 
 the second place, that this right is nugatory, and of no value, 
 unless they can petition Congress to effect such dissolution. 
 What does this argument prove? That the American Govern- 
 ment can not Ibe abolished by the gentleman's constituents, 
 without their .asking Congress to do it. This is the body 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIONS. 163 
 
 which must destroy the Union, if it is to be destroyed at all. 
 So much as to the matter of right. 
 
 And then the gentleman, as the next step of his argument 
 in defense, went on to enumerate the grievances which lead 
 these people to desire a dissolution of the Union; and the 
 grievances are many and terrible. I will go over a few of 
 the heads of complaint, by way of conttast to the statement 
 made by the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. BoTTS,) as to the 
 object and motive of the gentleman in bringing that petition 
 into this House, The gentleman from Massachusetts has 
 stated upon this floor that the portion of the Union whence 
 I come are trying, with all the influence they can exert, 
 to efiect a repeal of the habeas corpus, and the right of 
 trial by jury ; that they are industriously endeavoring to 
 extend the institution of slavery over the free States; that 
 they seek to involve this country in a war with Great Britain, 
 with a view to restore the African slave trade, and to fix it 
 upon these States for ever; and that the project of the Secre- 
 tary of the Navy for the establishment of a home squadron 
 had for its real object, not the defense of the country, but 
 was designed as a convoy for the slave trade. And then, sir, 
 after enumerating all these different grounds of grievance, the 
 gentleman has warned the House that he will go home to his 
 people, and say to them that it is time to take the alarm; 
 that he will give them the alarm ; and that he has introduced 
 this petition for the very purpose of exciting alarm. 
 
 Mr. Adams denied this, and declared that what he had said 
 was, that he had presented the petition because he considered 
 it his duty. 
 
 Mr. Marshall. I appeal to the report of the gentleman's 
 speech in the National Intelligencer, given by one of the 
 regular reporters of that establishment in this House. Mr. 
 M. then read from the report: 
 
 "And when he (Mr. A.) came to that in the defense which he should 
 make, if called on, he should consider other matters of oppression, not only 
 actual but intended. He would come and state before this House how that 
 
164 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 portion of the country whence that gentleman came was endeavoring to 
 destroy the right of habeas corpus and the trial by jury, and all the 
 rights in which the liberties of this country consist. 
 
 "He would show how, in that portion of the country, there was » sys- 
 'tematio attempt even to carry it to the dissolution of the Union, now 
 carrying on between different States. He would look into the controversy 
 between Virginia and New York, between Georgia and New York, and 
 between Georgia and Maine, in order to prove the continual system and 
 purpose to destroy all the principles of civil liberty among the free States; 
 and by power to force the detested principles of slavery on the free States 
 of ,this Union. He would show it by documents and by reference to 
 arguments which had been used, in such a manner that every man in this 
 House should be convinced of the truth of it. He had seen, and he was 
 now seeing, that among those measures so constantly and so perseveringly 
 pursued, was the project of smuggling this country into a war with Great 
 Britain, for the purpose of protecting the slave trade, African and Ameri- 
 can. He had seen that that was the deliberate purpose. And one of his 
 reasons for presenting this petition was to give the alarm to the people 
 of that portion of the country whence he came. It was time for them to 
 take the alarm, or they would find themselves smuggled into a war for 
 the protection of the slave trade ; and that the most absurd and false prin- 
 ciples of the laws of nations had been asserted by our minister in England, 
 all for the purpose of smuggling this country into a war with that govern- 
 ment, under pretense of defense against her aggressions. He would show 
 all this in the utmost detail, if he was called on to defend himself against 
 this charge." 
 
 Tims, sir, the gentleman's language has gone forth to the 
 world. And after he stated these heads of grievances, he 
 pledged himself that, if the House forced him to answer the 
 charge I had made, he would show the truth of all this. 
 
 Mr. Adams. And I will show it. 
 
 Mr. Marshall. I mean not to discuss their truth with 
 the gentleman. Neither shall I discuss here, and now, the 
 right of Great Britain to search American vessels on the 
 coast of Africa, or elsewhere, under the pretense of suppres- 
 sing the slave trade; for engaging in which, even were the 
 fact so, our ships and citizens are only amenable to the laws 
 and jurisdiction of their own country. 
 
 Mr. Adams. You had better not. 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIONS. 165 
 
 Mr. Marshall. Neither shall I discuss the necessity or 
 propriety of the home squadron, for the defense of our ex- 
 posed coast against the strongest maritime power in the 
 world, with whom we have many delicate and unsettled ques- 
 tions involving our territorial rights; or enter upon the ques- 
 tion whether such defensive measures are a grievance to the 
 North. I have adverted to this list of grievances merely to 
 show what ground has been actually taken by the gentleman 
 himself, in his defense. He has undertaken to make out a 
 case of such grievous oppression and tyranny exercised by 
 this government upon him and his, that, if aught can justify 
 an outraged people in going into a revolution, and bursting 
 the bands of society, this is the very case; and the gentleman 
 insists that he has done it. And, sir, he contends that the 
 action of Congress in preparing for a dissolution of the Union 
 is the only means by which the sacred and eternal right of 
 his constituents to abolish an oppressive and tyrannical gov- 
 ernmen,t can be carried into effect. The gentleman has, 
 avowed that he has brought this petition foi'ward in order to 
 give those constituents the alarm, and to afford them needed 
 information and proof in the documents and arguments he 
 means to adduce in. the progress of his defense. Still, how- 
 ever, the gentleman says that he has guarded himself in his 
 proposition for a reference ; and that he would not, if per- 
 mitted to report on the subject, advise an instant dissolution 
 of the Union. No ; not yet, not yet; but the time is coming 
 — is approaching. 
 
 Now, let any gentleman compare all this with the ground 
 of defense taken in behalf of the gentleman from Massachu- 
 setts by his friend from Virginia, (Mr. Botts,) and where will 
 the gentleman stand? The gentleman only wished an oppor- 
 tunity to prepare a report which should allay agitation, and 
 quiet the minds of his constituents! Oh, yes; and a precious 
 foretaste the House has enjoyed of the nature of that docu- 
 ment, which the chairman of the Committee of Foreign Re- 
 lations may be expected to send forth to the world, should 
 bis own instructions to the committee be adopted. This is 
 
166 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 allaying agitation, with a vengeance ! This is soothing irrita- 
 tion; this is a healing persuasive to convince men that the 
 Union of these States must be maintained! The gentleman 
 from Virginia longed that the opportunity should be given to 
 the gentleman from Massachusetts, that he might, by his 
 eloquent pen, by the force of his luminous understanding, and 
 the whole weight of his personal influence, put down for ever 
 the unhappy spirit of northern discontent, and make his con- 
 stituents ashamed that they had ever harbored a thought of 
 so dire a sacrilege as the dissolution of this Union! What! 
 trust this task of an angel of peace to the man who openly 
 avows that he has introduced the memorial for the purpose 
 of bringing forward, in its discussion, fresh subjects of alarm! 
 Assign this duty of healing, to the man who fortifies the right 
 to abolish the constitution through the agency of Congress, 
 by an appeal to the Declaration of Independence; and who 
 stimulates men to the exercise of this right, by presenting an 
 accumulation of grievances such as never had been endured 
 on earth before, and for which, in the judgment of these men, 
 there is no remedy, other than the total destruction of our 
 system of government? And an American House of Repre- 
 sentatives, themselves the embodied image of this great nation, 
 are to leave to hands like these the task of soothing the irri- 
 tations and quieting the alarms of a discontented people ! 
 
 I confess that I heard the gentleman from Virginia (Sir. 
 BoTTS) with astonishment; but if I wondered at the ground 
 taken by that gentleman, how was it increased when I listened 
 to the gentleman's (Mr. Adams') own immediate friend. A 
 gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. SaltonstAll) has ap- 
 pealed not only to the age and past services, but to the blood, 
 and lineage, and remote ancestors of his friend. He has 
 dwelt on his talents, his learning, his high standing, his influ- 
 ence, his weight of character, and, above all, his indomitable, 
 persevering courage. The gentleman has advised the House 
 not to take him in hand, for he was a descendant of one of 
 thai stubborn crew who, beginning with a petition of right, 
 had gone forward with untiring and undeviating footsteps, till 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 167 
 
 they had ended in overturning the English monarchy, and 
 bringing the head of Charles Stuart to the block ; — men who 
 had cast themselves on the bosom of the wild ocean, and had. 
 sought a home upon the bleak and desolate shores of an un- 
 known wilderness, rather than yield an inch of what they 
 deemed their rights at home ; — who had warred, and warred, 
 and warred to the death, without one thought of submission. 
 Finding ^in this House a descendant of one of those sturdy 
 commons of England, who were pilgrims or regicides as their 
 fortunes fluctuated, but who yielded never — a man whose 
 imagination seems thoroughly possessed with the idea that he 
 and his associates are as grievously and intolerably oppressed 
 on this side the Atlantic as his ancestors, had been on their 
 native shores, and who, remembering that the race from whom 
 he springs had prostrated the British throne, seems equally 
 confident that he can upheave the foundations of the Ameri- 
 can republic ; — upon such a one it is vain to think of laying 
 the hand of authority. It would seem that duty and policy 
 alike require that we should fold our arms and let him run. 
 And why? Because, by attempting to control him, we shall 
 o-nly provoke his people the more; and they will but come 
 upon us the more fiercely, should they see a finger laid, how- 
 ever lightly, upon their indomitable leader. For one, so help 
 me Heaven, it is an argument to which I will never yield. 
 If, standing as I do under my oath to the Constitution and 
 my obligation to the American people, I could be brought to 
 legislate under terror, these are the circumstances — these the 
 very considerations — which should induce me to vote for a 
 deeper and sorer punishment than that now proposed. 
 
 The gentleman from Massachusetts told me that I was not 
 able to comprehend the rights of the citizen ; that I knew 
 nothing of the Constitution of my own country, or of the 
 liberties and franchises which that- instrument was designed 
 to protect; and that the resolutions I have ofl"ered here indi- 
 cate such ignorance. 
 
 I listened, too, to what my colleague (Mr. Underwood) said 
 about the charge of treason which these resolutions involved. 
 
168 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 Will the House bear with me while I read once more the 
 passage with which it Avas my desire to preface the resolu- 
 tions I have offered? [Here Mr. Marshall again read the 
 preamble.] 
 
 Now, sir, can it be necessary again to reiterate that neither 
 the drawing nor presentation of the petition, nor the ,f nacting 
 of the statute prayed for, is charged as treason; but that its 
 execution and consequences, in the destruction of the coun- 
 try, the government, the body politic of the United States, 
 necessarily involve treason. Human language, as it seems to 
 me, can not be more explicit. 
 
 Mr. Adams. You beg the question. 
 
 Mr. Marshall. I beg nothing of you, sir; nothing. But 
 I am told that I must correct the position here taken, because 
 the memorial asks for a peaceable dissolution of the Union. 
 A peaceable dissolution of the Union ! It can not be. Be- 
 fore the bonds are broken, war must be made. It will be 
 made for the Union on one side, and against it on the other; 
 and making war on the United States, by any portion of the 
 same, is treason in all concerned. 
 
 A peaceable dissolution! How will you go about it? The 
 petition implies, and the gentleman maintains, that it can be 
 done only by Congress. I put it, then, to my colleagues to 
 say if we have it in our power to do any such thing. I 
 lay it down, as a philosophical and political truth, that a 
 Union like ours never can be dissolved, save by universal 
 assent, or by force of arms. I lay it down, that the govern- 
 ment of this country is a government essentially, and that 
 the United States is a body politic. I, as a citizen, am a 
 component part and member of that body: I am a party to 
 this government. My relations and my allegiance are direct 
 and immediate. It operates upon me, not through any other 
 sovereign interposed, to whom alone I am responsible, and 
 who represents me, as in the case of a league or treaty ; but 
 directly, by its own laws and officers. The United States is 
 my country ; and her Constitution, and my share of protec- 
 
ADAMS KESOLUTION. 169 
 
 tion under it, constitute my birthright. It is seldom worth 
 while to discuss an abstract proposition; but when you come 
 to the right to dissolve this Union as the basis of legislative 
 action, it is abstract no longer; it becomes fearfully and 
 momentously practical. The gentleman can not find it in the 
 constitution or laws. He traces it to the declaration of 
 American independence, itself a revolutionary paper, sustained 
 by the pledge of blood, and carried out by the sword. That 
 was no peaceable dissolution, at least. And the right claimed 
 then for the people does not sustain the gentleman nor the 
 petitioners in their application to those who are the sworn 
 servants of the people, under an. authority which none but 
 their masters can abolish. But, sir, does the gentleman con- 
 tend that a simple majority of the people can of right peace- 
 ably abolish the Constitution of the United States, against the 
 will of the minority? I say of the people, far less of the 
 Congress. I speak not now of revolution by physical force, 
 but of peaceable dissolution of the social Union by a majority 
 of its members, against the voice of the minority, as matter 
 of right, either natural or acquired under our constitution. 
 It is plain that no such right is recognized by grant, reserva- 
 tion, or implication, in the constitution itself. It must then 
 be inferred by right reason from the nature of things. Whence 
 do a majority of men derive the right to control by law the 
 will and the action of a minority ? From positive agreement, 
 certainly. The right is conventional, not natural. Ten men 
 are thrown together, between whom there subsists no previous 
 agreement, who will say that the will of six can control the 
 remaining four? In such a state of things, each man is 
 master of his own actions, and independent of the other nine. 
 The rightful power of a majority is the result of contract in 
 every instance ; — a contract in which the minority have origi- 
 nally agreed to be so governed. The right to make such a 
 contract is a natural right, and, when once entered into, is 
 binding upon all. Such contract and consent are laid down 
 by the Declaration of Independence as the only just founda- 
 tion of government. In all true theory, then, political consti- 
 
170 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 tutions repose upon the original contract to which each indi- 
 vidual upon whom they operate, and whom they can hind, is 
 a party. This agreement, according to the reasoning of our 
 own declaration, must be presumed, or the principles of that 
 declaration can not be sustained ; and, in point of fact, it is 
 in every instance made either expressly or by tacit consent. 
 The foreigner who wishes to bind himself to our constitution, 
 to take upon him its obligations, and to entitle himself to its 
 protection, makes his declaration and swears his allegiance. 
 He thus becomes individually a party to the government, and 
 by the most solemn of all contracts. But as men, in the 
 absence of agreement, are entirely independent of each other, 
 so are they competent and strongly impelled by the laws and 
 necessities of their common nature to form agreements. When 
 formed, they are binding upon all who are parties, according 
 to their terms, and can not be cancelled but by the consent 
 of all, or by force. Government, then, the highest of all 
 contracts, hj means of which all others are enforced, partakes 
 still of the nature of all others. Founded in agreement, it 
 binds men together in one body, or community, or society; 
 and can not be dissolved, without the same authority by which 
 it was formed — to wit, the consent of all the members, or by 
 some original stipulation in the constitution or contract, or by 
 force. There is no stipulation in our national contract by 
 which a part of the people, be it great or small, can throw 
 the residue out of their social union, and from under the pro- 
 tection of the national laws and the national strength. There 
 remain but the other two modes. What prospect is there that 
 a government including seventeen millions of peoplei is to be 
 dissolved by universal assent? You may sever the Union. 
 God in his infinite mercy forbid that you ever should ; but 
 you will never do it, save by force. Never, never. 
 
 I have said that the execution of an act of Congress pro- 
 viding for such an event does involve treason, because it could 
 only be executed by force of arms ; and that this very passage 
 of the act does involve perjury, because we have sworn to 
 support the constitution. Suppose we do so much violence to 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIONS, 171 
 
 our imaginations as to conceive that such an act has been 
 passed: how will it work? It will go to Kentucky, and it 
 will tell the people of that State that there is no United 
 States — no American constitution; that there is no federal 
 government and no State governments ; that society is resolved 
 into its original elements; that the people, the sovereign 
 people, are a people no longer, but a mere disconnected mul- 
 titude, dependent upon accident or force for any form of polity 
 into which they may afterward be thrown. I say there would 
 be no State government ; because, if the federal constitution 
 be overthrown, there would remain no government armed with 
 the attributes of sovereignty. The State governments can not 
 make war, enter into alliances, own a navy, coin money, lay 
 duties, or collect revenue from commerce : and therefore I say 
 the dissolution of the Union is, for the time, the dissolution 
 of society. The State governments must be recast and in- 
 vested with new power, before there would be any political 
 organization in America at all competent to achieve the ends 
 of society. And will any gentleman tell me that, in a junc- 
 ture like this, under an attempt to cast to the winds all civil 
 and social ties, that I, who have sworn again and again to 
 support the federal constitution, will have no right to draw the 
 sword in its defense ? Dissolve the Union ! Yes, throw Ken- 
 tucky back upon herself, buried in the interior, a dependent 
 and tributary province of some new empire established on the 
 Atlantic coast; levy taxes on her consumption to fill the 
 treasuries of New York, or Virginia, or South Carolina ; taxes 
 imposed by legislatures in which she is not represented, if we 
 are to be hroken into as many independent communities as 
 there are States. Or rend the empire in twain, and convert 
 her, from the center of the American Union, into the frontier 
 State of a slave confederacy — the very Belgium on which the 
 battles of abolitionism are to be fought. Heavens! that a 
 scheme so fraught with ruin, so pregnant with unutterable 
 horrors to mankind, should become familiar to the minds of 
 Christian men ! But think you, sir, that this could be effected 
 without force? That it is all to be done under the mild, the 
 
172 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 bland, the pacific, the amiable reasoning of the most sage and 
 learned member from Massachusetts? When has a govern- 
 ment, however bad, been overthrown, without finding some to 
 fight in its defense — some brave spirits, who, if from no motive 
 but a selfish interest in its abuses, have still drawn the sword, 
 and died for what had at least protected them ? When has a 
 free people been denationalized, without convulsions, war, and 
 bloodshed? And think you that a constitution, the freest in 
 its spirit, the most magnificent in its conception, the most 
 fortunate in its origin, the most felicitous in its execution and 
 its results, binding together the greatest extent of territory 
 and the largest mass of interest ever yet found united upon 
 earth on principles of freedom, — think you, sir, that it is des- 
 tined to fall ■without a struggle ? Come that day when it will, 
 it must be bloody. It would be so at any time, and under 
 any circumstances ; but at a period like this, and under a state 
 of society like ours, with a people of such characteristics and 
 such means, the convulsion under the motives now at work 
 must be followed by horrors for which history has no parallel. 
 Sir, if we can not live in peace while we are united by all 
 manner of ties, obligations, oaths, and interests, most assuredly 
 we never shall when all these ties are broken, State sundered 
 from State, and all left to the fierce collisions engendered by 
 mutual rivalry, jealousy, and selfishness — the theatre of foreign 
 intrigue, and the prey of foreign ambition. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, when I wander from the subject, I wander in 
 pursuit of the gentleman from Massachusetts, who has led the 
 way. That gentleman objects to his triers. He tells us that 
 gentlemen from the South are not competent to try him on 
 the charge of bringing forward a proposition to dissolve this 
 Union. The South may well thank the gentleman from Mas- 
 sachusetts. It is a glorious compliment he has paid her; and 
 this testimony alone, coming from such high authority, ought 
 to be sufficient, in itself, to wipe from her escutcheon any 
 shade of past restlessness or rashness that may bedim its 
 brightness. The day of those errors has now gone by; and 
 the gentleman from Massachusetts himself being judge, the 
 
ADAMS KESOLUTIO'NS. 173 
 
 men of the South in this hall are so deeply, so irrevocably 
 attached to this Union, that they are not fit to try a man on 
 the charge of bringing forward a proposal to dissolve it. 
 According to the gentleman, northern men are fit ; they can 
 judge, having no such bias in their way. Will northern gen- 
 tlemen here acquiesce in that statement? Will they answer 
 their colleague's appeals? Will they endorse this petition, 
 and the reasoning by which it is sustained? When the ques- 
 tion comes, is such a course worthy of censure ? will northern 
 statesmen here declare, upon their oaths and their honor as 
 American legislators, that it is not censurable? Are they 
 prepared to tell the American people that the people of Mas- 
 sachusetts have a right to dissolve this Government ? That 
 to attempt it through her representatives in Congress, is justi- 
 fiable ; and that they are ready to connive, at least, at the 
 movemen-t. Oh, sir, if they do, how a few years must have 
 changed them ! how must Massachusetts herself have changed 
 since the memorable era of 1798, when the South spoke of 
 obstructing or nullifying, not the constitution, but acts of Con- 
 gress. Do gentlemen recollect the short and pithy answer 
 given by her to the Virginia resolutions, an answer which 
 extorted, by its dagger-like pungency, the famous report of 
 James Madison? On all the great points of our glorious 
 constitution, she was then sound as granite. How has she 
 changed ! When the question to be decided shall be, has a 
 portion of the people of the United States a right to abolish 
 the constitution of the United States ; and is Congress a neces- 
 sary organ to eflect that purpose, so that without its action 
 the right is nugatory ; will Massachusetts be found voting aye, 
 while the south votes no ? Ah ! but there is a cause adequate 
 to the phenomenon, here to be explained. It is the detestation 
 of the South to abolitionism that makes her a Unionist, and 
 renders her unfit to try the gentleman. He insists on the 
 connection between the questions. And has the love of the 
 North for abolition brought her in favor of dissolution ? Has 
 she vowed that slavery shall cease; and does she resort to 
 dissolution as the mean to effect it? Frightful, indeed, are 
 
174 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 the omens with which we are surrounded. My colleague over 
 the way (Mr. Underwood) declares that if the Union is dis- 
 solved, slavery will be abolished. So far, he and the gentle- 
 man from Massachusetts perfectly agree. All know, or may 
 know, who can read, that the institution of slavery is guar- 
 anteed by the constitution, and placed exclusively under the 
 control of the States. And all who know the facts of the 
 case, know that the people of the South are falsely charged 
 when they are accused of attempting to introduce slavery into 
 the free States ; although the power to do this, follows neces- 
 sarily the power to touch the subject by the general govern- 
 ment. If slaves come within the power of Congress to regu- 
 late commerce between the States, then the States can not 
 obstruct their free circulation as property throughout the 
 Union; and so long as slavery exists at all, it must be uni- 
 versal. But if the governments of New York and Pennsyl- 
 vania can abolish, then surely the governments of Virginia 
 and South Carolina can retain it. If the argument from the 
 commercial power (which I have seen urged by pretty high 
 authority about Boston) be sound, then the Kentuckian has 
 as much right to sell, and the Peansylvanian to buy his slave, 
 as his beef in the Philadelphia market. But it is ridiculous 
 to reason the point. No man doubts that slavery is guarded 
 by the present constitution from federal interference. And it 
 was wisely and rightly guarded. Without it, the States could 
 not and ought not to have united. Slavery being peculiar, 
 and confined to a portion of the confederacy, could never, 
 upon the original principles of the social union, be subject to 
 the action of a legislature, a large part of which has nothing 
 of community in the subject-matter. Massachusetts does not 
 doubt it. I do not understand the gentleman himself (Mr. 
 Adams) to doubt it, except in the case of insurrection. Do 
 they, therefore, (the gentleman and his State,) stumble upon 
 dissolution in quest of abolition? And does my colleague, 
 agreeing with them that such dissolution is the surest means 
 of abolishing slavery, therefore vote that a presentation here 
 of a petition from that quarter to dissolve, is not censurable? 
 
ADAMS BESOLUTIONS. 175 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I do in my soul believe that, if the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts himself, instead of looking into books, 
 could travel among us, and look at facts as they exist, — if he 
 would see with his own eyes, instead of his learning, — he 
 would at once be induced to depart from his plan. 
 
 Mr. Adams. They would lynch me. 
 
 Mr. Marshall. If you endeavored to kindle the flame 
 there which you do here, I must admit that, in all probability,, 
 they would. 
 
 Mr. Adams. You are doing them that service now, as 
 much as you can. 
 
 Mr. Marshall resumed. It is the gentleman's privilege to- 
 interrupt and to insult every man on this floor ; it is his privi- 
 lege, and I accord it to him freely. But slavery, it seems, is 
 to be abolished, if the Union is dissolved. Abolish slavery ! 
 — and how? Why, according to my colleague, it is to be 
 done by all the negroes running away to Ohio, and through 
 Ohio into Canada. Well, sir, this may do very well for 
 Kentucky; but how is it to work in South Carolina and 
 Georgia ? Are they to come into Ohio, too, and make a 
 regular march into Canada ? And is no hand to be lifted to 
 prevent or interrupt this grand migration — this modern exo- 
 dus of two millions of people — a migration equal to that of 
 the Goths and Vandals upon the Roman empire ? The blacks 
 are to come forth as the Israelites did out of Egypt. I won- 
 der who is to be their Moses ? Is it the venerable gentleman 
 from Massachusetts ? A magnificent conception this, truly ! 
 Abolish slavery ! — and how ? Never in that way. 
 
 But the gentleman from Massachusetts does not look to this 
 mode of doing the thing ; he is not quite so monomaniac as 
 that. He is not so little read in the past history of the 
 world, or so unacquainted with the practical afluirs of man- 
 kind, or so unable to look into the causes and springs of 
 national revolutions, as to believe a fond tale like this. How, 
 
 then, is it to be done? The Constitution— the Americaa 
 12 
 
176 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 Constitution — that sacred bond of liberty and peace, ■whose 
 potent arm, eternal voice, and covering shield have hitherto 
 been our safety and our pride — the constitution, with all the 
 oaths of the North to support it, must first be broken down. 
 And then — ay, then — the descendants of the puritan and the 
 regicide, who were driven from England by the persecutions 
 and oppressions of the English nobility ; and of the cavalier, 
 expelled by the equally relentless persecutions of the puritan, 
 after both had united on this side the water against a govern- 
 ment which had alternately oppressed them both, buried their 
 differences, and, with their common hands, constructed a new 
 government, united, strengthened, cemented by the shedding 
 of their common blood, are once more to be driven asunder; 
 and a more fearful strife than that which convulsed Europe 
 two hundred years ago, is to affront the sun, and pollute the 
 blessed light of heaven, on the soil' of these once free and 
 happy States. The fierce and vengeful fanatic, true to the 
 principles of his fathers, and the sworn champion of universal 
 «mancipation, holding in one hand his proclamation of free- 
 dom and alliance to the slave, and a firebrand in the other — 
 elated, too, with the consciousness of numerical superiority — 
 is to invade the South, and avenge the wrongs of Africa, in 
 ■massacre and conflagration. He will be met. The haughty 
 slaveholder will greet the new crusader with bloodiest wel- 
 'Come. The cavalier's sword will leap from its scabbard, in 
 vindication of a broken covenant, a violated national compact, 
 to which he had vainly trusted as a shield to his property and 
 bis rights. Surrounded by his household gods, in defense of 
 his hearthstone, the honor of his wife, the purity of his 
 daughter, fro aris et foais, he will incarnadine his weapon to 
 •the hilt. 
 
 " To patriot vengeance ne'er hath sword 
 More terrible libations poured." 
 
 And should he fall, " outnumbered, not outbraved," it will be 
 amid the ashes of all he holds dear — his home, his family, 
 liis country, and his race. Glorious consummation ! worthy 
 only of the pMIaathropic genius and all-grasping benevolence 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 177 
 
 of the gentleman from Massachusetts, to rear a black repub- 
 lic, a sister and ally for that of Hayti, upon the ruins of the 
 social fabric, constructed by Europe's best and purest chivalry. 
 
 Sir, there is in that region a state of society which the 
 gentleman and his allies can not alter, without involving con- 
 sequences more horrible than he can now conceive. The 
 gentleman will have gone far when he obtains the preparatory 
 legislative act; but that which must follow will give him, in 
 more terrible fruition, the almost boundless consequences of 
 the crime which his petitioners meditate. That for which 
 they ask involves the utter destruction, the obliteration of that 
 race to which he should be allied by color, by a common 
 blood, by education, by association, by descent, by friendship, 
 by a near ,and blessed alliance, by a common glory, by every 
 indissoluble ligament that can bind a human heart; or the as 
 certain destruction of that very race toward whose liberation 
 all his efforts are given, and in consummating whose deliver- 
 ance he hopes to close a long and illustrious life in a blaze 
 of glory, which is to rival the pure eternal light which encir- 
 cles and haloes the name of Wilberforce. If that be his hope, 
 it can never be fulfilled. There is no parallel between the 
 cases. There is nothing in the enterprise of Wilberforce, the 
 manner in which it was conducted, or the consequences which 
 were to follow it, which can for a moment be likened to that 
 achievement which seems to be the object of the gentleman's 
 ambition. But, sir, I quit this branch of the subject. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts told me 
 the other day that it did not become me to complain of him 
 for presenting this petition, inasmuch as the Senator from 
 Kentucky, (Mr, Clay,) who is my immediate constituent, as 
 well as the representative of my State, was now urging a 
 proposition which, in effect, amounts to a dissolution of the 
 Union. Sir, it is vain to liken a proposition to dissolve the 
 Union, which involves the destruction of the government and 
 the termination of the republic, to a proposition to amend the 
 constitution, such as is now under consideration in the other 
 end of the Capitol. That proposition seeks to preserve the 
 
178 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 instrument, and does not touch the unity of our government; 
 if adopted finally, it leaves the American people entire. It 
 suggests, indeed, a modification of the national charter — a 
 specific modification, and in one particular. The suggestion 
 is a legitimate subject of legislative action, authorized by the 
 instrument it seeks to amend. In the distribution of the 
 powers of government, you may give more, or give less, to 
 the legislative or to the executive department, and still the 
 Union -will remain; the bonds which hold us together as one 
 people will be unbroken. There will still be such a thing as 
 the United States. There will be such a thing as the people 
 of the United States, and there will remain a Constitution of 
 the United States. That instrument itself has pointed out 
 the only peaceful and legitimate mode of its own amendment ; 
 and that is the mode in which the Senator from Kentucky 
 proposes to effect his object. That proposition is said to be 
 a whig measure — :at least it was put forward in what has been 
 termed the " whig manifesto" at the close of the extra ses- 
 sion. If what the gentleman (who, I understand, claims to 
 be a whig) says is true, whiggery must have wonderfully 
 changed its physiognomy since the days when this illustrious 
 gentleman was President of the United States, and the dis- 
 tinguished Senator, who is urging that measure, was his 
 Secretary of State. I am, myself, a whig. I am not a very 
 old man ; yet, if this be true, I have lived longer than I ex- 
 pected — long enough to see one of these two eminent indi- 
 viduals introduce a proposition to dissolve the Union at one 
 end of the Capitol, and the other at the other end. "Tell it 
 not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askalon," that 
 these two great political leaders, combined once more, are 
 now in consultation to overthrow the constitution of their 
 common country. And I suppose that all good whigs are 
 bound by party allegiance to track full and fair in the path 
 of these patriarchs of our tribe. 
 
 The voting in favor of a censure upon the man who has 
 had the hardihood to bring before this august body, for the 
 first time, a proposition such as that upon your table, is— at 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 179 
 
 least it has been so hinted by the gentleman from Massachu- 
 setts—so far as northern votes are concerned, to be confined 
 to the democracy. And he sneered at the thought. For 
 whom the sneer was intended, or whom it may best fit, it may 
 be difficult to determine. And has it come indeed to this — 
 that when the question of dissolution shall come up, the de- 
 mocracy alone will be found base enough to desert their 
 northern brethren, to brave with bold defiance the influence 
 and the threats of fanatics and incendiaries, and stand videts 
 in the front of the outworks of that good old constitution 
 which their fathers helped to frame, and under which they 
 have lived and enjoyed so much social happiness and pros- 
 perity ? Am I indeed to understand that it is a part of the 
 whig policy to sustain the gentleman from Massachusetts in 
 his course upon this subject, and to back him in the defense 
 upon which he has chosen to throw himself? Now, I have 
 been, and am, politically opposed to the democratic party ; 
 but not quite so much opposed as that they can drive me, 
 from a spiirit of opposition, into doing wrong, because they 
 have chosen to do right. I was opposed to many, almost all, 
 of the measures of the man who was once their great leader ; 
 but when he swore that the Union must and should be pre- 
 served, my heart swelled high under the sentiment, and, had 
 all his public acts conformed to this, I might have been his 
 man too. Strange indeed is the argument, and strange the 
 positions we have seen taken on this occasion ; and well and 
 truly may it be said, we are fallen, on evil times. 
 , What a singular spectacle is exhibited by this. House at 
 this moment ! Instead of exerting the legislative powers con- 
 ferred upon us, and making the necessary provision for the 
 public service, an exhausted treasury, and a suffering people, 
 we have been disputing of abolition petitions, till at last those 
 disputes are merged in a question of dissolving the Union. 
 But who is to blame? The gentleman from Massachusetts 
 taunts me with having voted for the repeal of the twenty-first 
 rule, and then against the reception of the petitions he has 
 offered here. I did indeed vote for the repeal of the twenty- 
 
180 T. F. MABSHALL. 
 
 first rule ; but it was not repealed, it remains in force, and I 
 refused to aid the gentleman in getting surreptitiously into 
 the House petitions forbidden by one of its standing rules. I 
 should still be in favor of the repeal of the twenty-first rule ; 
 though, upon the subject of referring these petitions to him, 
 I may have changed, since I have seen what is, as I sincerely 
 believe, his real object. After he has avowed himself an 
 alarmist, and described the operations and designs of this 
 government against the liberties of his constituents, as he has, 
 I can not consent to trust him with any thing in which its 
 existence is involved; nor shall I act inconsistently. 
 
 The gentleman has charged me individually, and particu- 
 larly, with being an enemy to the North, and with a settled 
 purpose to oppress her. So far is this from being true, that 
 I am ready to do all that a man in my condition can do, to 
 remove all causes of discontent; and, in addition to their 
 political connection, which I will never see broken without 
 resistance, to bind together the North and the South by the 
 strongest ties of a mutual commercial interest. I would to- 
 morrow, if I could, render this American continent of ours 
 wholly independent of other countries, for the supply of every 
 thing which her own rich and varied soil, and equally diversi- 
 fied population and industry, are naturally capable of pro- 
 ducing. To the jealous legislation of other countries, ex- 
 cluding from their markets, and from competition with their 
 domestic productions, all similar articles of ours, I would 
 oppose counter-legislation. I would interpose strong commer- 
 cial regulations, with a view the more promptly to develop 
 our mighty sources of manufacturing production. I would 
 guard our infant establishments, as they arose, from the 
 powerful rivalry of foreign governments, and the jealous com- 
 binations of foreign capitalists ; well assured that the agricul- 
 ture of the planting, and grain -growing, and grazing States, 
 could never languish under the fullest expansion of northern 
 labor, and capital, and machinery. Our country has all the 
 elements of a world within herself; and elements exactly so 
 distributed by nature, as to make the several parts necessary 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIONS. 181 
 
 to, and dependent upon, each other. Could my will prevail, 
 the products of southern agriculture should be exchanged 
 against the manufactures of the North, if possible, to the full 
 extent of the demands of each; and the valley of the Missis- 
 sippi — a greater than that of the Nile — should be the granary 
 and the pasture for them both. The perfect freedom of our 
 domestic trade is an article of our political liberty. Its 
 enlargement, by the opening of every channel of industry 
 possible to our situation, is the darling passion of my mind. 
 I would do this, not so -much to increase our wealth and 
 power, as to show the various sections of this mighty empire 
 — an empire destined, if propitious fortune and human virtue 
 shield it from dismemberment, to include within its embrace 
 the largest number of prosperous human beings ever yet com 
 prehended under one political system — that the distinctive 
 peculiarities between them, properly understood, are blessings 
 from the munificent hand of Heaven, and constitute the best 
 and strongest bonds of their union, meant to be everlasting. 
 I am no enemy of the North ; nor will she ever find me so, 
 unless the new principles and new opinions, which seem to be 
 springing up there, shall precipitate her into the effort which 
 some of her children so madly urge. 
 
 But I have been told, sir, on this floor, and by a northern 
 member, that I must not press my resolutions, because that 
 is the surest way to bring about such a result ; and I am to 
 avow a fear, lest such a thing should actually be done. The 
 North can dissolve the Union, and will, if we question her 
 right to solicit our cooperation! If they can and will, why 
 let them do it in their own way ; but, for Heaven's sake, and 
 in the name of all that is decent, let them not ask us to do 
 it. We may well say to them, what Hazael said when his 
 treason was prophesied to him: "Is thy servant a dog, that 
 he should do this thing?" But we are warned not to breathe 
 the slightest censure on one of our own members for bringing 
 here a proposition which may well be characterized as atro- 
 cious—the first, the very first of the kind that mortal im- 
 pudence has ever laid before this body. Sir, we heard th^ 
 
182 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 southern gentlemen taunted yesterday — -jeered, for arraying 
 themselves against this petition. It goes a whole stone's cast 
 beyond any thing which the southern nullifiers ever dreamed 
 of. The gentleman has gone beyond them far away. It 
 seems that the New England brain, in this department as in 
 all others, needs but a hint straightway to improve on it. The 
 convention that sat at Columbia never took the ground that 
 Congress had power to dissolve the Union; nor did they so 
 much as pretend that they were themselves overthrowing the 
 constitution. I know what they said, though I differed from 
 them then, and shall for ever differ. They said they were 
 maintaining the constitution. They insisted they had a right, 
 a constitutional right, (I confess I never knew where they got 
 it from,) to arrest within their own limits, by State authority, 
 the execution of what they deemed an unconstitutional law, 
 until there was time for a convention of the other States; 
 which is, according to their theory, a sort of fourth depart- 
 ment of our government, constitutional in itself, and to be re- 
 sorted to .on extraordinary occasions, to settle a constitutional 
 dispute between a sovereign State and the decision of the 
 entire federal government. 
 
 But we are told that it is an ungracious act to inflict so 
 severe a censure on one so venerable; to brand with parlia- 
 mentary disgrace the name of one who has passed a long life 
 in the public service, and stands connected with the entire 
 history of his country, from Washington to Tyler. He has 
 taken up in his old age, to be sure, some peculiar notions, 
 (and very peculiar they are, I acknowledge ;) and, though we 
 do not quite approve them, he is to be allowed to proceed 
 and carry them out, even to the extent of overturning the 
 government ; and we must not stir a finger, lest we precipi- 
 tate the very doom we dread ; and that those who urge this 
 censure are responsible for the waste of time and sacrifice of 
 public interest. "Waste of time, forsooth! Does the gentle- 
 man from Virginia (Mr. Botts) remember that the gentleman 
 from Massachusetts, whose cause he now so strenuously and 
 so ably — I will not say artfully — advocates, the other day 
 
ADAMS RESOLUTIONS. 183 
 
 offered a petition praying his own removal from the head 
 of the Committee of Foreign Relations, and asked the permis- 
 sion of the House to defend himself from the charges con- 
 tained therein? Does the gentleman also remember that his 
 friend and client then was assured, by the representative of 
 the district whence the petition purported to come, that it 
 was fictitious and a hoax ; and, from the peculiar stamp of 
 the paper, the memorial was evidently manufactured here? 
 In good faith, sir, and with the hope that the gentleman 
 would place himself right before the country, and vindicate 
 himself from the strong suspicions growing out of his course 
 here, I moved that he should be heard. How did he requite 
 the indulgence of the House. Why, sir, he turned upon 
 southern gentlemen and southern institutions, in words of 
 fire and tones of fury, such as he alone could ever utter; 
 with all the passions of his passionate nature blazing out, as 
 they are always ready to do when one hated word, the word 
 south, strikes upon his ear. Sir, on that occasion — an occa- 
 sion of indulgence, procured for him by the motion of a 
 member from a slave state — with the floodgates of his wrath 
 and bitterness flung wide, he poured forth a torrent of invec- 
 tive, in terms so outrageous and offensive, as threw the 
 House into an uproar, and compelled his frieUd and cham- 
 pion (Mr. BoTTs) to vote against permitting him to proceed. 
 On that occasion he was silenced, and by the assistance of 
 the gentleman from Virginia. Well, sir, his next step is to 
 offer this proposition to dissolve the Union; and then such a 
 defense as I have been examining. And this is to be passed 
 over, out of pity or contempt! We are to treat him as a 
 superannuated imbecile, beneath parliamentary inquiry or 
 notice. Sir, his friends and advocates have arrayed him in 
 every quality which can make a man at once great and 
 terrible. They have conceded to his hand every instrument 
 of mighty mischief: gifts of understanding, of eloquence, of 
 knowledge, of dignity, of power to move the public mind;— 
 and yet, after painting him thus, the same gentlemen turn 
 round and tell us that he is no fit subject for the action of 
 
184 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 this House. I have placed myself near his seat, and listened 
 with profound attention to all he has said upon the subject 
 of these petitions. I wanted to understand distinctly his 
 object, in the extraordinary course he seems determined to 
 pursue; and, for one, I am convinced. If the gentleman's 
 combined declarations and actions are to be trusted as true 
 exponents of his purpose, then his purpose is, ultimately, that 
 Tvhich is expressed in the petition he has offered. Not yet — 
 not yet, perhaps. Things are not ripe; agitation, deep agita- 
 tion for the present; — such agitation as he has promised, if 
 he be indeed called on for further defense — and execution 
 hereafter. 
 
 Now, sir, I call upon the North to say whether these are 
 their serious purposes or not. I ask of the able and honor- 
 able men who represent northern interests on this floor, 
 whether these be indeed their views. Do they really mean 
 revolution; and do they put this gentleman forward, by way 
 of feeler, because his age, and dignity, and past services, and 
 venerable appearance, are calculated to suspend the vindictive 
 action of this House? Do they thus seek to escape personal 
 responsibility ? 
 
 Mr. Speaker, when that most touching and tearful scene 
 between the 'gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Giddings) and my 
 colleague (Mr. Underwood) was enacting before our wondering 
 eyes the other day, the gentleman from Ohio expressed him- 
 self as coinciding perfectly with the views of my colleague; 
 he returned thanks to my colleague for having expressed 
 them. He assured my colleague, and all southern gentlemen, 
 that he had no thought of such a thing as interfering with 
 slavery within the States where it existed; but he and his 
 friends — mark that, sir — he and his friends wanted to be 
 freed from the expense of maintaining it. One word more, 
 sir, and he would have developed his plan; but southern 
 members rose and stopped him. I entreated them not to do 
 so; I implored them to let him talk on. The gentleman is a 
 neighbor of mine; we are coterminous, with but a river 
 flowing between. The views of himself and friends are mat- 
 
ADAMS EESOLUTIONS. 185 
 
 ters of mighty interest to my section of the country. Never 
 lover longed for the whispered consent about to be wrung 
 from his reluctant mistress, as I to hear the disclosure he was 
 about to make under this newborn alliance between himself 
 and my colleague. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, this is the first time in our history that any 
 man has been bold enough to introduce on this floor a paper 
 proposing a dissolution of the Union. He ought to be boldly 
 met. If, sir, we meet him and the petition with as decided a 
 temper as he himself exhibits, — if we rebuke the infamous 
 proposal to us to break our oaths, in tones of indignation 
 such as it justly merits, — it will have a healthful eifect 
 throughout the whole extent of the land. The action of 
 government has, and ought to have, a powerful influence over 
 public opinion; the people and their representatives, like 
 opposite mirrors, are mutually reflectors of each others' sen- 
 timents. It will gladden the heart and strengthen the hands 
 of every loyal, true-hearted American, of whom I well know 
 there are millions in the North as violently opposed to the 
 incendiary schemes at work among them as am I; and this, 
 if any thing, will haVe the effect of checking this gentleman 
 and his associates in any farther proceedings they may medi- 
 tate in this line of policy. 
 
 Sir, for all the bitter and envenomed things he has said 
 against me, in the progress of this debate, I Jforgive him. He 
 said that I boasted to him of my aristocratic blood. The 
 rules of this House forbid my characterizing that assertion as 
 it deserves. I forgive him that, too; and were it in my power 
 to exorcise from out his heart the demon of mischief which 
 threatens all that is dear to me ; if it were possible that he 
 could be brought in any good degree to recant what he has 
 here declared; if I could see any gleaming of that spirit of 
 pacification, that love for the constitution, and that zeal for 
 the Union, which has here been accorded to him by others; — 
 I would instantly and joyfully retract all that I have said. 
 I am the last man on this earth who would strike wantonly at 
 
186 T. F. MARSHALL, 
 
 that venerable head, around which there rally so many asso- 
 ciations to intercept even a merited blow. 
 
 I now, sir, in redemption of my pledge to the gentleman 
 from Indiana, renew the motion to lay the whole subject on 
 the table; trusting, however, that the House will not thus 
 evade a direct vote on a question which, I must think, their 
 own dignity, its own intrinsic importance, and the public ex- 
 pectation, require us to meet full in the face. 
 
TO THE PUBLIC. 187 
 
 TO THE PUBLIC. 
 
 Ik the summer of 1845, Mr. Marshall was a candidate for Congress in the 
 10th Congressional District of Kentucky. In the midst oT an excited po- 
 litical canvass, those opposed to his election alleged that he favored the 
 sentiments of the North upon the slavery question. In support of these 
 allegations, garbled extracts of his letters upon Slavery, published in 1840, 
 in the Commonwealth — the same before referred to — were freely circulated, 
 and commented upon throughout the district. Finally certain questions 
 relative to the subject were propounded to the Congressional candidates. 
 In answer to these interrogatories, and to set himself right in the public 
 mind, Mr. Marshall issued the foilowing Circular, under the caption of, 
 "To the Public.'' It was written at night in Lexington, after his return 
 from a laborious tour through portions of the district, before he had taken 
 the slightest repose : it shows evidently an energy that never tired, a genius 
 that never failed him. 
 
 On my way to Jessamine week before last, the " Inquirer," 
 of this city, of the date June 27th, 1845, was placed in my 
 hands, and my attention drawn to a series of questions pro- 
 pounded therein, the original paper being said to have been 
 signed by one hundred and twenty citizens of Fayette county. 
 The questions are directed to the candidates for Congress in 
 this district, as well as to the county candidates for both 
 branches of the State Legislature. When I saw the paper I 
 was hastening to fulfill a succession of appointments I had 
 made to address the people of Jessamine, running through 
 seven successive days. I have stated the questions, and an- 
 swered them orally, in every address which I have made since 
 their appearance. On my arrival in this city last night, I was 
 informed by various persons that an answer was expected 
 through the press. Till now I have had no time to prepare 
 a response in writing. There are five questions in the series. 
 
188 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 The four first may be embodied in one, and amount briefly to 
 this : Whether the candidate is in favor of the abolition of 
 slavery in Kentucky, or of emancipation, either gradual or im- 
 mediate ; if in the affirmative, what is the mode in which it is to 
 be effected, and what disposition is proposed to be made of the 
 enfranchised negroes? Is the candidate in favor of a change 
 of the Constitution of- Kentucky, and what change does he de- 
 sire? The fifth and last question relates to the law of 1833, 
 prohibiting the importation of slaves, and interrogates the can- 
 didate whether he is in favor of the entire repeal of the law? 
 
 It has been the fashion for some time past to charge me 
 with political apostacy, and with an entire and radical change 
 of opinion and principle in relation to the laws and policy of 
 my country. To the several interrogatories referred to, I 
 should feel neither hesitation nor difficulty in giving a direct 
 response, without discussion or explanation, and would do so 
 as most convenient to myself, but for the frequent referen-ce 
 in the public prints to certain letters of mine, written in 1840, 
 in defense of " the law of 1833, prohibiting the importation 
 of slaves," and published in pamphlet form. 
 
 These letters were written, that the ground I occupied in 
 relation to the question in all its bearings might be defined by 
 the clearest boundaries, and that I might not be implicated or 
 confounded in any wise with men with whom I had neither 
 sympathy nor communion, and with opinions and objects be- 
 tween which and my own there was neither affinity nor resem- 
 blance. Clear as I thought I had made myself in relation to 
 the abolition of slavery in Kentucky, the power of the Govern- 
 ment to pass laws of protective emancipation, or the policy of 
 changing the constitution with a view to enlarge the powers 
 of the Legislature on this head, still, I am informed by my 
 friends, that garbled extracts from these letters have misled 
 many persons as to the positions I really occupied and the 
 views I entertained. I refer now to these letters, and the 
 misapprehensions in relation to them, as an apology for giving 
 my answers to the questions in the "Inquirer," in the very 
 language I then employed. 
 
XO THE PUBLIC, 189 
 
 On pagfr 20 of the pamphlet will be found the following 
 paragraph : 
 
 " At the time of the passage of this law, the sect now known 
 by the title of "Abolitionists," had not made their appearance, 
 and as I was sworn then upon the constitution of my country, 
 by all the obligations of that oath, I aflSrm now, that I do not 
 believe that the principles and designs ascribed to that party 
 were in the contemplation of any human being who voted for 
 that law. I was myself not only never an abolitionist, hut never 
 an emancipationist, upon any plan which I ever heard pro- 
 posed. I was not an emancipationist, because I believed that 
 the power did not exist. I would not have been even though 
 it had existed, unless coupled with the means for the depor- 
 tation of the race. No plan of that sort had occurred to me 
 which seemed feasible. I have uniformly voted against a Con- 
 vention Bill. The year it passed I voted against it in the 
 Legislature, and opposed it warmly before the people the sum- 
 mer the question was submitted to them." 
 
 These were my published opinions then. I answer now, I 
 am not in favor of the abolition of slavery in Kentucky. I 
 believe, in the first place, that there is no government on 
 earth armed with the constitutional power to effect this object, 
 and if there was I would resist its exercise. With those who 
 look to the abolition of slavery in the United States, the 
 enfranchised race remaining among us, as a measure either 
 lawful, practicable or desirable in the present state of things, 
 I hold no communion of opinion. What changes may come 
 over the face of the world, or what revolutions over the 
 human understanding, lie hid in the deep bosom of the future. 
 That which shall mold the European and the African races, 
 however, into one harmonious community of freemen and 
 fellow citizens, will confound varieties which nature has made 
 distinct, and obliterate the lines by which Heaven has bounded 
 and separated different classes of its creatures. The abolition 
 of slavery in the United States involves more than a civil, or 
 political, or social revolution. It is not a mere prejudice of 
 rank gr caste, a despotic prejudice, founded in injustice and 
 
190 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 upheld by power, which the abolitionist seeks to destroy. He 
 aims at a revolution in nature and the moral structure of the 
 species, unauthorized alike by physical or intellectual laws. 
 I might wish to see it effected when it shall please the 
 Creator to wash out the marks he has branded on the 
 African's brow, to obliterate the all-enduring monument of 
 past wrong, the pledge of eternal hate, the badge of physical 
 inferiority and past servitude, that dooms the African and his 
 descendants, while among us, to be a slave, protected by the 
 benevolence or the interest of his master, or an outcast, 
 shielded by no laws, linked with no sympathy, the miserable 
 victim of a prejudice incurable, because founded in the nature 
 of things; or a stern, desperate domestic foe, burning with 
 hate, panting for revenge — armed with the power of freedom, 
 yet stripped of all its most precious blessings and advantages. 
 The idea of citizenship and equality, social and political equal- 
 ity, a domestic society in Kentucky or Virginia compounded 
 of liberated African negroes and the descendants of the 
 European chivalry, the races kept, too, for ever distinct, is an 
 absurdity too monstrous for abolitionism itself. Eternal war, 
 war to extermination, slavery, or amalgamation of the races, 
 are the three alternatives. Shield me and mine from that 
 philanthropy which would blend the crystal eye, the elevated 
 feature, the ambrosial and waving curl, the rosy skin, all the 
 striking and glorious attributes that mark the favorites of 
 nature, exhaling fragrance, and redolent of beauty and of 
 bloom, with the disgusting peculiarities, the wool and grease 
 and fcetor of the blackened savage of the Southern deserts. 
 The Saxon and the Celt, the Norman and the Dane, even the 
 Tartar and the Hun, the Turk and the Saracen — the races of 
 Japhet and of Shem may compound and melt and mingle into 
 one people when met upon the same soil — but the race of 
 Ham must serve or separate. 
 
 The opinion has been maintained by ingenious men in favor 
 of emancipation, that although the Constitution of Kentucky 
 declares that no law shall be passed for the emancipation of 
 slaves ^Yithout the consent of their owners, still the Legislature 
 
TO THE PUBLIC. 191 
 
 may pass laws declaring that negro children born after the 
 passage of the law should be free. The argument upon which 
 this opinion rested was subtle. It was contended that the 
 Constitution referred only to persons in being. That a child 
 not yet born was not a slave, and that a law declaring 
 prospectively a being free that as yet could not have been a 
 slave, did not emancipate a slave without the consent of the 
 owner, but by anticipation prevented or prohibited an unborn 
 creature from ever becoming a slave. 
 
 This opinion is reviewed and answered in the third letter 
 to the Commonwealth. 
 
 On page 18 of the pamphlet will be found the following : 
 
 " In defending the policy of that law at the time of its 
 passage, and in maintaining that the reasons for its con- 
 tinuance are far stronger than for its establishment, I shall 
 not discuss the abstract question of slavery. Those who 
 choose to search for its foundation among the original and 
 natural rights of men may do so. I take slavery as I find it, 
 a positive institution, recognized by the Constitution of my 
 country. The right of the master to such persons as were 
 slaves, within the Commonwealth at the time of the adoption 
 of that constitution, by the laws then in force, and to such 
 persons as the laws since have permitted to be introduced 
 into the country, being slaves by the laws of other States, 
 and being of the same description with persons held in bond- 
 age here, is as complete and as entirely -protected by law 
 from the power of the government as any other right of pro- 
 perly whatever; and this whether the legislation be present 
 or prospective, whether it relate to slaves in existence at the 
 passage of the law, or grasp at future and unborn genera- 
 tions. The doctrine of the emancipating power of the govern- 
 ment over the 'post nati' 1 have ever denied. 
 
 "The reasoning which seeks to distinguish between the 
 
 constitutional right of the master over his slave in existence, 
 
 and over the unborn issue of the females, has no foundation 
 
 either in law or nature. The law of servitude is express ; it 
 
 places the descendants of the females, without limitation. 
 13 ' ^ > 
 
192 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 upon the same footing with the ancestors. The issue follows 
 the condition of the parent, partus sequitur ventrem. It is 
 no answer, to say that a person not in heing can not be a 
 slave, it is just as true that a person not in being can not be 
 free. The unborn can neither be the subject of the laws of 
 servitude or the statute of emancipation ; neither can attach 
 till birth, and then the Constitution takes the precedence." 
 
 If any one has the curiosity or will take the trouble to 
 examine the pamphlet, he will find in the second letter, the 
 most elaborate argument I have seen, against the proposition 
 that the general Government has any control in any way 
 over the institution within the States, or of the trade in 
 slaves between the States. It is too long to cite here, nor is 
 it necessary to my purpose to do so. There is one view, 
 however, and one argument in favor of the power of Congress 
 over the subject of slavery, which is not noticed in those 
 letters. I had not known at that time that any man would 
 plant the abolition power of the general Government upon 
 such a ground. 
 
 It is maintained by Mr. Adams, and after him by others 
 of lesser note, that so long as slavery is confined in .its con- 
 sequences and its burdens to the States where it exists, the 
 Government of the United States has no power to interfere 
 with its regulation; but that when it becomes a source of 
 national expenditure, or the 'occasion of national exertion, it 
 is at once subjected to the national jurisdiction, and can be 
 regulated or abolished by the authority of Congress. The 
 case put, upon which this formidahle jurisdiction attaches, is 
 that of a servile insurrection. And the clause in the Federal 
 Constitution, from which the argument is drawn, is that which 
 authorizes the employment of the national force " to suppress 
 insurrections," etc. It was the assertion of this principle by 
 Mr. Adams that induced me first to assail that singular man 
 in the House of Representatives. Coupled with the principle 
 of the Abolitionists of the right of resistance in the slaves, 
 the ferocious appeals of these incendiaries upon this very 
 subject, the overpowering weight of the free States in the 
 
TO THE PUBLIC. 193 
 
 National Legislature, the possibility of such an event under 
 the incumbent pressure of all the circumstances in some of 
 the Atlantic States, where the number of slaves exceed the 
 ■white population, the declaration of such a power arising on 
 such a contingency, smote me, I confess, with horror. The 
 clause in the constitution is evidently a guarantee; taken by 
 the slave States. It is the pledge of the whole Union to pro- 
 tect the weaker States against a domestic danger. That it 
 should be wrested into an occasion, and an instrument by 
 which the very right to be secured, should be taken away, is 
 a commentary upon that fairness with which power ever rea- 
 sons to its object. The abortive effort which was made to 
 censure Mr. Adams for offering a petition to dissolve the 
 Union, and the part I bore in that transaction, have been; 
 fully before the people of this county. I refer to it now, and' 
 to the argument I made in the House of Representatives upon 
 the resolution of censure, merely to show that I maintained 
 in Congress the same principles on this subject that I did in 
 1840, and that I do now. 
 
 In answer to the fifth and last question in the " Inquirer," 
 I say briefly, I should be opposed, were I in the Legislature 
 of Kentucky, to the repeal of the law of 1833. I have re- 
 viewed my opinions on that subject with great care, and am 
 unable to perceive any advantage which Kentucky could de- 
 rive from its repeal. I do not perceive how she would be 
 rendered safer or stronger, or slave property made more 
 secure, or the character or value of that property improved 
 by the introduction of such slaves, and in such masses as it 
 would seem to me would inevitably follow the repeal of the 
 law. I can not, as yet, understand how the repeal of that 
 law, and the change in the relative proportion of the black 
 and white population, that would ensue, taken especially in 
 connection with our geographical position, would better enable 
 us to meet the tremendous question which the Abolitionists 
 seek to force upon us. 
 
 Had I changed my opinions upon the subject of this paper, 
 I should not have hesitated to avow the fact. I have written 
 
194 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 to correct misrepreaentation, and I hope I am understood. 
 Since 1840 my acquaintance with some of the principal actors 
 in American affairs has been much enlarged, important events 
 have transpired, and important questions connected with this 
 very subject of slavery have arisen. 
 
 That I have suffered some alteration in my estimate of the 
 character, principles and objects of leading public men, may 
 be, nay, is true enough. That I have changed or abandoned 
 any of the great and general principles by which I steered 
 my political course, particularly on the subject of slavery, is 
 utterly false. My action, mainly in Congress, and particu- 
 larly since I left it, has been influenced by ttfise very prin- 
 ciples, and oil this very subject. 
 
 That the importance of the Abolitionists as a party in the 
 United States is infinitely greater than I had imagined — that 
 the institution of slavery, and the views and projects of this 
 sect in regard to it, excites the keenest interest in foreign 
 countries, particularly in England — that they are hostile to 
 the continuance of the Union upon principle, and will be 
 found the ready ally of a foreign power in any scheme to 
 curb the southern extension of our empire, or to break in 
 twain the frame of the Republic, in pursuit of what they call 
 human emancipation, are facts which the events of the last 
 four years have forced upon me. The determined fanaticism 
 of this sect alone would make them formidable. Their num- 
 ber is so great that they already aspire to hold the balance in 
 the great national elections. They claim to be heard, and 
 consume much of the time of the National Legislature, in the 
 fierce agitation of the question of the power of the Govern- 
 ment to execute their scheme of liberating two millions and 
 a half of African slaves. They rave at the National Consti- 
 tution for the guarantees it contains, and the protection it 
 affords to this detested institution. They have presented peti- 
 tions at the bar of the House for the dissolution of the Union. 
 They have selected and secured as their agent and their organ 
 in the House of Representatives the most learned, the most 
 persevering, the mist eloquent, the most distinguished, and 
 
TO THE PUBLIC. 195 
 
 decidedly the ablest and most efficient member of that body. 
 What is to be the future course and termination of this ques- 
 tion — what the final solution of this terrible problem in 
 American History, is beyond my ken, and is scarcely a 
 fit subject fpr present speculation. Great men in England 
 thought or said that it turned upon the question of Texas and 
 annexation. Great men on this side of the water, opposed to 
 the acquisition of that territory, said the same thing. The 
 action of the Government of the United States, and the deter- 
 mination of the people of Texas, have postponed the date of 
 Abolition in America. If the predictions at least of that 
 " ominous conjunction" of political seers were to be trusted, 
 British philanthropy must pause for a season. " The pledge 
 of the power and the will given by the greatest nation on 
 earth for the ultimate emancipation of the human race," as 
 Mr. Adams termed the British act of Parliament emancipat- 
 ing the slaves in the West Indies, can not yet be redeemed. 
 But I must not extend these remarks, as I shall continue to 
 respond to these questions on the stump. 
 
196 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 REMOVAL OF C. M. CLAY'S PRESS. 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 Delivered in Lexington, on the ocetmon of the removal of C. M. Clat'8 preti, and 
 the suppression of the "True American," the 18th of August, 1845. 
 
 NjEVER, perhaps, was there a period of greater local excitement, than at that 
 time prevailed in the Tioinity of Lexington. C. M. Clay, an able and 
 avowed antagonist to the institution of slavery, was then publishing the 
 " True American '' in Lexington, his main object being to disseminate his 
 own peculiar views. He departed, however, from the reasonable, concili- 
 atory course, essential to the success of his sheet, and penned inflamma- 
 tory appeals, as editorial, well calculated to arouse a community of slave- 
 holders to a protection of their rights, homes, and families. Remonstrance 
 and rebuke did not in the least suppress a repetition of these appeals. 
 On the 12th of August, 1845, his paper contained the following as editorial : 
 
 " Slavery, the most unmitigated, the lowest, basest that the world has ever 
 seen, is to be substituted for ever for our better, more glorious, holier aspi- 
 rations. The Constitution is torn and trampled under foot; justice and good 
 faith in a nation are derided; brute force is substituted in the place of high 
 moral tone: all the great principles of national liberty which we inherited 
 from our British ancestry are yielded up, and we are left without God or 
 hope in the world. When the great-hearted of our land weep, and the man 
 of reflection maddens in the contemplation of our national apostacy, there 
 are me!n pursuing gain and pleasure, who smile with contempt and indifier- 
 enoe at their appeals. But, remember, you who d^ell in marble palaces, that 
 there are strong arms and fiery hearts and iron pikes in the streets, and panes of 
 glass only between them and the silver plate on the board, and the smooth-skinned 
 woman on the ottoman. When you have mocked at virtue, denied the agency 
 of God in the affairs of men, and made rapine your honied faith, tremble, for 
 the day of retribution is at hand, and the masses will be avenged." 
 
 On the appearance of the above, the citizens resolved to adopt a more vigor- 
 ous and decisive course than persuasion. A note was sent to Mr. Clay, 
 assuring him that such publications would no longer be countenanced in 
 their midst, advising him of a public meeting to be held tlie next evening, 
 and requesting an answer by that time. This note elicited a reply in per- 
 fect keeping with the editorial before named. It closed with — "Go tell 
 
c. M. clay's press. 197 
 
 your secret conclave of cowardly assassins that C. M. Ciay knows hia 
 rights, and how to defend them." On the same day this reply was written, 
 Mr. Clat published the following extraordinary appeal: 
 
 " Kentuckians : You see this attempt of these tyrants, worse than the 
 thirty despots who lorded it over the once free Athens, now to enslave you. 
 Men who regard law — men who regard all their liberties as not to be sacri- 
 ficed to a single pecuniary interest, to say the least, of doubtful value — 
 lovers of justice — enemies of blood — laborers of all classes — you for whom I 
 have sacrificed so much, where will you be found when the battle between 
 liberty and slavery is to be fought? I can not, I will not, I dare not ques- 
 tion on which side you will be found. If you stand by me like men, our 
 country shall yet be free, but if you falter now, I perish with less regret 
 ■when I remember that the people of my native State, of whom I have been 
 so proud, and whom I have loved so much, are already slaves." 
 
 On the 18th a large and excited meeting was held at the court-house yard. 
 After reading a communication from C. M. Clay, somewhat modified from 
 his former imperious tone, Mr. Marshall delivered the following address. 
 Its effect was powerful and instantaneous. Several thousand excited men 
 were immediately quieted. The press and type of the "True American" 
 ■were subsequently carefully taken from the office, by action of the meet- 
 ing, boxed up and shipped to Cincinnati, to the care of January & Tay- 
 lor, subject to Mr. Clay's order. 
 
 Mr. Ohaikman and Fellow-citizens of Fayette: The 
 vast concourse of men around me, independent of every thing 
 else, gives ample proof of some deep and powerful excitement 
 of the public mind. 
 
 You know, you all know, that this assemblage of the people 
 has been convened upon a published notice, to take into con- 
 sideration the safety of this community, and to adopt such 
 measures as may secure your peace, and guard from the 
 threatened danger your homes and families. I rise not as 
 upon other occasions, to make you a speech. I seek not to 
 inflame your passions, and will not hazard by one word of 
 extemporaneous appeal upon the subject of this day's action, 
 the terrible responsibility of precipitating this already excited 
 assembly. It is in keeping, however, with the order, decorum, 
 and dignity, which have characterised all the previous steps 
 in this great popular movement, and which mark the aspect 
 of this crowd, that some one should formally explain what has 
 gone before, and state the circumstances which have led to' 
 
198 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 this extraordinary call of the people. I can but achieve this 
 object, by reading to you the proceedings of a smaller body 
 of citizens, the correspondence opened by them with the editor 
 of the ''True American," and their address to the public, and 
 the resolutions which accompanied it. (Here Mr. Marshall 
 read the documents referred to, which had been agreed upon, and 
 then proceeded.) It had occurred to several gentlemen who 
 had been active in the proceedings of last week, that the trans- 
 actions of this day would elxtend, probably, in their influence, 
 far beyond this immediate neighborhood. That they would 
 become the subject of severe examination and the most rigid 
 and scrutinizing censure, throughout the United States. That 
 the character of our people, and the good name of our Com- 
 monwealth, would be involved in the resolutions we adopt, and 
 the temper and the mode in which they may be executed. 
 
 Liable as all these may become to misrepresentation, it was 
 thought best for your honor and your interests, and it was 
 hoped, that it would not be deemed by you presumptuous, to 
 prepare such a statement of the facts and the principles upon 
 which your action this day is based, as forms in their judg- 
 ment a complete defense in morals and in laws for this great 
 exertion of the original power of society. Such a statement, 
 these gentlemen had instructed me to prepare and offer for 
 your acceptance, not without the hope, that though imperfect 
 in its execution, you may not deem it altogether unworthy to 
 be sent forth to the world, as your declaration of the ground 
 upon which you rest your justification at the bar of that public 
 opinion, to which communities as well as individuals are amen- 
 able for their action. As such, and under their instructions, 
 I tender it, and beg leave to read it in lieu of all other remark 
 or argument. (Here Mr. Marshall read the address and 
 resolutions, which when the question was taken upon them at 
 the close of the reading, were adopted without a dissenting 
 voice.) 
 
 The people of the city of Lexington and county of Fayette, 
 together with many hundreds from the adjoining counties, as- 
 
c. M. clay's peess. 199 
 
 sembled in the city of Lexington- on the 18th August, in pur- 
 suance of a general notice made by the authority of a body 
 of the citizens of Lexington, calling a general assembly of the 
 people, to concert measures for the suppression of the farther 
 publication of the "Abolition paper," called the "True Amer- 
 ican," having heard the proceedings, correspondence, and 
 address of the meeting which called this assembly, approve 
 the same, and now make and 'publish to the world this decla- 
 ration, to vindicate their resolutions and their action. 
 
 To have prevented the establishment of this press' by legal 
 means would have been impossible. There is no regular judi- 
 cial process by which it could have been achieved. To have 
 resorted to means like the present would have been premature, 
 and perhaps indefensible. The liberty of the press and the 
 freedom of political discussion, are essential elements of our 
 social system. An effort to establish a press in Kentucky 
 devoted' to the discussion of the question of domestic slavery 
 and the propriety and practicability of emancipation by law, 
 as an individual enterprise, might, in this simple view of the 
 proposition, have been tolerated by the people, as it is in all 
 probability not prohibited by our laws. The precise purpose 
 and principles of the editor of the " True American," and the 
 position he meant to assume here in relation to the subject, 
 together with the effect he, his principles, and his paper, were 
 to produce upon our peace and our property, were of course, 
 at the outset, matters of speculation. After an experiment of 
 some months, however, there can be no doubt remaining in 
 this community in relation to any of these particulars. 
 
 The institution of slavery existed in a portion of the States 
 of this Union before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, 
 by force of the municipal constitution of the particular States. 
 The institution itself is clearly recognized and guaranteed by 
 the articles of the Union, and left where it was found, under 
 the exclusive control of State governments and laws. In the 
 enumeration of the people three-fifths of the slaves are in- 
 cluded as the basis of federal representation, and direct taxa- 
 tion upon the several states is subjected to the same appor- 
 
200 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 tionment. Fugitive slaves must be rendered up upon claim 
 of the master, nothwithstanding the law of the State into 
 which they escape may not recognize the relation. 
 
 The United States shall guarantee every state against 
 domestic violation upon application of the Legislature or the 
 Executive, and shall provide for calling forth the militia to 
 suppress insurrections. 
 
 These are among the securities taken by the slave States 
 in the National Constitution ; not only that they were not to 
 be disturbed but that they were to be protected in this pro- 
 perty by the national arm and authority. 
 
 A formidable party has arisen within a few years in the 
 United States, who seek actively and practically to disturb 
 these guarantees, to change the constitution in relation to 
 some of them> and who deny its palpable import, or wrest to 
 fearful purposes its powers in relation to others. 
 
 They aim at the Abolition of Slavery in America and halt 
 not at the means. They are organized, active, united in 
 pursuit of this object, and desperately fanatical. They have 
 found their way into the National Legislature, and already 
 exercise a threatening influence there. They command a 
 powerful press in the United States. They have among them 
 a burning zeal, commanding talent, and a large amount of 
 political influence and monied capital. They scout the idea 
 of gradual emancipation or colonization. They treat the insti- 
 tution as equally opposed to religion, morals and law. They 
 maintain that the negro slave here is an American born, 
 entitled to the full benefits and blessings of republican free- 
 dom, under the Declaration of Independence, which freed all 
 of American birth. They maintain for him the right of 
 insurrection and exhort him to its exercise, and with an infer- 
 nal subtlety claim, that the power conferred upon Congress to 
 " suppress insurrections" gives to that body in which the free 
 States have now so overwhelming a preponderance, the right 
 to remove the cause by abolishing slavery. That a servile 
 war becomes by force of this clause a national affair, and can 
 be settled upon any terms under the national discretion. With 
 
c. M. clay's press. 201 
 
 this party, we believe, from the fullest evidence of which the 
 nature of the case is susceptible, the Editor of the " True 
 American" to be connected by sympathy of opinion, burning 
 and fanatical zeal, and concert of effort. With his speculative 
 opinions we presume not to interfere; with his practical exer- 
 tions, in our midst, to "disturb the settled order of our domes- 
 tic life, to inflame to discontent and rebellion our household 
 slaves, we have the most direct and incontestible connection. 
 In proceeding by force and without judicial proceasj to arrest 
 the action of a free citizen, tojnterfere in any degree with 
 his private property, and if the necessity of the case and the 
 desperation of the man require it, to proceed to extremities 
 against his person, we owe it to our own fame, and the good 
 name of our community, to set forth the facts, upon which 
 arises in our justification the highest of all laws, the law of 
 self-defense and preservation from great and manifest danger 
 and injury. 
 
 Before the Editor of the "True American" had established 
 his press in Lexington, or made his celebrated visit to the 
 North, he had corresponded with the New York Tribune, a 
 leading Abolition paper. In certain letters over his signature 
 some of the leading and most dangerous principles of the sect 
 were avowed and defended. The Abolition of Slavery in the 
 District of Columbia — the exclusion of the three-fifths of the 
 slave population in the apportionment of representation by a 
 change in the constitution, thereby weakening still farther the 
 slave States upon the floor of Congress — the exclusion of 
 Texas from the Union, in pursuit of which object he avowed 
 himself ready to take up arms — the enlisting the whole force 
 of the non-slaveholders in Kentucky against slave property, 
 and thus forcing a change in the constitution of the State, 
 were among the means and instruments relied upon by him 
 for effecting the entire abolition of slavery in America. In 
 one of his letters, he anticipates from the abolition of slavery 
 in Kentucky and some other of the western States by the 
 means above noticed, and the exclusion of Texas, that the 
 slave population will be crowded upon the planting States to 
 
202 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 such an extent, that abolition, if not voluntarily achieved by 
 law, will be forced by a war of colors exterminating one or the 
 other of the races, in either event, (and the editor seemed to 
 contemplate either with equal serenity) terminating in that 
 universal liberty so fiercely sought. Holding these opinions, 
 and after visiting northern cities and being received there in 
 full communion by the abolition party, caressed and flattered 
 and feasted, hailed in the stages of his triumphal progress by 
 discharges of cannon, and heralded in the papers devoted to 
 the cause as the boldest, the most intrepid, the most devoted 
 of its champions, he returnecF to his native State, the organ 
 and the agent of an incendiary sect, to force upon her prin- 
 ciples fatal to her domestic repose, at the risk of his own 
 life and the peace of the community. In the preparation and 
 establishment of his office in Lexington, Mr. Cassius M. Clay 
 acted as though he were in an enemy's country. He has 
 employed scientific engineers in fortifying against attack, and 
 prepared the means of destroying the lives of his fellow 
 citizens, it is said, in mines of gunpowder, stands of mus- 
 kets, and pieces of cannon. ** The whole course of the man 
 bears evidence incontestable that he was entering upon a 
 career fatal to the peace of the community of which he was 
 a member. , The citizen has a right to arm in his own 
 defense, and to protect his house and his person from unlaw- 
 ful assaults ; but why should a peaceful citizen engaged in a 
 lawful calling, make preparations suited to repel an invading 
 army ? It is needless to our purpose, to notice the editor's 
 ruthless attacks upon individuals, and his threats to terrify 
 resistance of his course. We proceed at once to the last 
 number of the "True American" and the publications since 
 put forth by its editor, as conclusive evidence of his temper 
 toward the community, and of the character, purpose, and 
 inevitable tendency of the paper. In this paper of the 12th 
 of August there is a leading article, for which, although not 
 from the pen of the editor, the print is responsible to the 
 public, and which at all events is evidence of the purpose of 
 the print and the character and objects ef those who support 
 
c. M. clay's press. 203 
 
 it. We make from this article a few extracts of the most 
 ominous character. The fundamental proposition with this 
 writer is as follows: "Our Legislatures, State and General, 
 should raise the platform upon which our free colored people 
 stand. They should give to them full political rights to hold 
 office, to vote, to set on juries, to give their testimony, and 
 to make no distinction between them and ourselves." After 
 tracing the delightful effects of this equality, the article pro- 
 ceeds : " Our national character, our best consciences, our 
 duty, all weigh nothing in the scales of slavery, against the 
 pride arid selfishness of the master. The instrument called 
 the Constitution, after pronouncing all men equal and having 
 equal rights, suffers slavery to exist, a free colored person to 
 he denied all political rights, and after declaring that all free 
 persons shall enjoy a free intercourse with the States-, suffers 
 the free negro to be driven out of all and excluded from such 
 rights. Deliver me from an instrument thus partial, thus 
 unjust, that can be thus perverted and made to sanction pre- 
 judices and party feelings, and note the accidental distinc- 
 tion of color." We think nothing from the North can beat 
 this. The western apostle transcends, if possible, his mission. 
 But again as to the necessity of our being civil and sub- 
 missive to our friends, the abolitionists, and the danger of 
 restiveness on our part: 
 
 "The slaveholders must calm themselves into just thinkers, 
 and cease to provoke the northern free States by putting them 
 at defiance in Congress and out of it. 
 
 "They must look upon abolitionists as enthusiasts if they 
 will, but also as in earnest, and in design, at least, as real 
 patriots. The Abolitionist is becoming as reckless as the slave- 
 holder when thus provoked, and may add violence and injustice 
 to his course that was intended to be mild and conciliatory." 
 Very rational and prudent advice. Submit quietly or the 
 matter will be forced upon you. But we quote farther the 
 following pregnant sentences : " It is in vain for the master 
 to try to fence his dear slaves in from all intercourse with the 
 great world, to create his little petty and tyrannical kingdom 
 
204 T. F. MAKSHALIi. 
 
 on his own plantation, and keep it for his exclusive reign. 
 He can not shut out the light of information any more than 
 the light of heaven. It will penetrate all disguises, and shine 
 upon the dark night of slavery. He must recollect that he i» 
 surrounded. The North, the East, the West and the South 
 border on him, the free Mexican, the free Yankee, the more 
 than free Abolitionists of his own country. Every thing 
 trenches upon his infected district, and the Wolf looks calmly 
 in upon his fold." We were mad not to listen to warnings 
 like these. We have quoted these passages to prove the 
 thorough identity between the doctrines and objects of this 
 paper, and the worst principles of the ultra Abolitionists of 
 the North. Here is the assertion of the equality of the Afri- 
 can race under the constitution, and the repudiation of the 
 practical working of the instrument : " Deliver me from an 
 
 instrument thus partial, thus unjust — that can be thus 
 
 perverted." Here, too, is the threat to the master of the 
 consequences of the light and information, " that the more 
 than free Abolitionist " of his country is pouring upon the 
 negro mind. 
 
 When we contemplate the mild form of negro slavery in 
 this district, the happy and peaceful and contented relations 
 of the master and the slave, where such a thing as cruelty 
 was scarcely known, where the master was without fear or 
 distrust, and the well-fed, well-clothed, intelligent slave bent 
 to his lot of labor, the lot by the way of all mankind, with- 
 out repining, regarding his master rather in the light of 
 parent, and himself as a necessary and no mean portion of 
 the family, we could pour curses on the fiends who would 
 break up the intimate, and not the least endearing relation 
 of domestic life, and when all was peace and mildness, plant 
 discord and fury, and fiery hate, and render cruelty a neces- 
 sary policy on the one side, by inculcating disobedience as a 
 principle on the other. But we must hasten with our proof. 
 In the same day's paper, an editorial appeared, backing the 
 reasoning of the article to which we have referred, and by a 
 brief recapitulation of violated law, a trampled constitution, 
 
e. M. clay's peess. 205 
 
 the triumph of brute force over moral right, the falsification 
 of the great principles of the revolution, all illustrated by 
 "slavery the most unmitigated, the lowest, basest that the 
 world has seen;" and winding up with the following extraor- 
 dinary threat: "When the great-hearted of our land weep, 
 and the man ot reflection maddens in the contemplation of 
 our national apostacy ; there are men pursuing gain and 
 pleasure, who smile with contempt and_ indifference at their 
 appeals. "But remember you who dwell in marble palaces — 
 that there are strony arms and fiery hearts, and iron pikes in 
 the streets, and panes of glass only between them and the silver 
 plate on the board, and the smooth-shinned woman on the 
 ottoman. When you have mocked at virtue, denied the 
 agency of God in the affairs of men, and made rapine your 
 honied faith, tremble, for the day of retribution is at hand — 
 and the masses will be avenged." Here is more light and 
 knowledge thrown upon the negro's mind, and horrible fires 
 kindled in his already "fiery heart" by the hand of the dar- 
 ing incendiary, the audacious emissary of the " more than 
 free Abolitionist." Roused and alarmed by these atrocities, 
 and determined no longer to endure the presence of an armed 
 Abolitionist, hurling his firebrands of murder and of lust into 
 the bosom of a peaceful and polished city, a number of the 
 citizens of Lexington undertook the task of remonstrance. 
 To a mild — a wonderfully mild request — to discontinue the 
 paper, the haughty and infatuated fanatic responded in terms 
 of outrage, unparalleled, to the committee of gentlemen who 
 waited on him, denying the right of the citizens to consult 
 together on such a subject, and denouncing the meeting which 
 had opened a correspondence with him, as a cowardly con- 
 clave of pirates, robbers, and assassins, and assigning as the 
 ground of their excitement, the apprehension, that their pov^r 
 was about to be taken away from them. The editor himself 
 has published this correspondence, appended to a handbill, 
 which appeared before the call of this meeting of the people, 
 and before his answer was laid before the first meeting re- 
 ferred to. The whole together proves either that C. M. Clay 
 
206 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 is a madman, or that he meditated, and has prepared himself 
 for a civil war, in which he expected the non-slaveholding 
 lahorers along with the slaves, to flock to his standard, and 
 the war of aholition to begin in Kentucky. That we may not 
 be suspected of that extravagance which we charge on him, 
 we quote from his letter the closing sentence. " Go tell your 
 secret conclave of cowardly assassins, that C. M. Clay knows 
 his rights and how to defend them." To this he appends an 
 appeal addressed to the Kentuckians. That we may not be 
 suspected of garbling, we insert this extraordinary summons: 
 
 " Kentuckians : — You see this attempt of these tyrants, 
 worse than the thirty despots who lorded it over the once free 
 Athens, now to enslave you. Men who regard laws — ^men 
 who regard all their liberties as not to be sacrificed to a sin- 
 gle pecuniary interest, to say the least of doubtful value — 
 lovers of justice — enemies of blood — lahorers of all classes — 
 you for whom I have sacrificed so much, where will you be 
 found when this battle between Liberty and Slavery is to be 
 fought? I can not, I will not, I dare not question on which 
 side you will be found. If you stand by me like men, our 
 country shall yet be free ; but if you falter now, I perish 
 with less regret when I remember that the people of my na- 
 tive State, of whom I have been so proud, and whom I have 
 loved so much, are already slaves." 
 
 That this infatuated man believed that the non-slaveholders 
 of Kentucky would feel and act as a party against the tenure 
 of slavery, and that through them he expected to change the 
 Constitution of Kentucky, and finally overthrow the institu- 
 •tion, is evident from one of his letters to the Tribune. That 
 h? should have calculated on kindling the flames of civil and 
 servile war, and rallying free laborers and negro slaves under 
 his standard, would seem incredible, yet his acts and his 
 words can bear no other construction : " laborers of all classes 
 — you for whom I have sacrificed so much, where will you be 
 found when this battle between Liberty and Slavery is to be 
 
c. M. clay's press. 207 
 
 fought? If you stand by me like men, our country shall yet 
 be free ; but if you falter, I perish, etc." 
 
 Such a man and such a course is no longer tolerable or 
 consistent with the character or safety of this community. 
 With the power of a press, with education, fortune, talent, 
 sustained by a powerful party, at least abroad, who have made 
 this bold experiment in Kentucky through him, the negroes 
 might well, as we have strong reason to believe they do, look 
 to him as a deliverer. On the frontier of Slavery, with three 
 free states fronting and touching us along a border of seven 
 hundred miles, we are peculiarly exposed to the assaults of 
 Abolition. The plunder of our property, the kidnapping, 
 stealing and abduction of our slaves, is a light evil in com- 
 parison with planting a seminary of their infernal doctrines 
 in the very heart of our densest slave population. Commu- 
 nities may be endangered as well as single individuals. A 
 great and impending danger over the life or personal safety 
 of a single man, justifies the employment of his own force 
 immediately in his own defense, and to any extent that may 
 be necessary to his protection. He whose aim it is, or the 
 inevitable tendency of whose conduct is to bring about intes- 
 tine convulsions and servile war, threatens to inflict upon 
 society the greatest horror it can endure. Our laws may 
 punish when the offense shall have been consummated; but 
 they have provided no remedial process by which it can be 
 prevented. To war with an Organ, of Abolition by a,ction or 
 indictment for libel, would make that powerful party smile. 
 To injoin the publication of the " True American " would only 
 change its name. A perpetual injunction against the publica- 
 tion of any paper whatever by Mr. C. M. Clay, were beyond 
 the power of the chancellor. The danger continues. An 
 Abolition paper in a slave State is a nuisance of the most 
 formidable character — a public nuisance — not a mere incon- 
 venience, which may occasion delay in business or prove 
 hurtful to health or comfort, but a blazing brand in the hand 
 of an incendiary or madman, which may scatter ruin, confla- 
 14 
 
208 . T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 gration, revolution, crime unnameable, over every thing dear 
 in domestic life, sacred in religion, or respectable in modesty. 
 Who shall say that the safety of a single individual is more 
 important in the eye of the law than that of a whole people ? 
 Who shall say that when the case of danger — real danger, 
 of great and irreparable injury to a whole community, really 
 occurs — that it is not armed legally with the right of self- 
 defense ? In either case the circumstances must be left to the 
 judgment of the world, or the decisions of justice. An un- 
 authorized crowd, who inflict death upon persons or destruc- 
 tion upon property, for the gratification of passion or even 
 for the punishment of crime, is a mob, and is the most fatal 
 enemy to security and to freedom. But as in case of sudden 
 invasion, or insurrection itself, the people have at once, inde- 
 pendent of the magistrates, the right of defense, so when 
 there be a well-grounded apprehension of great, and, it may 
 be, irreparable injury, the use of force in the community is 
 lawful and safe. We hold the Abolitionists traitors to the 
 Constitution of the country, and enemies to the terms upon 
 which the Union was origjnally formed, and the only terms 
 upon which it can continue to subsist. When they bring 
 their doctrines and their principles into the bosom of a 
 slave State, they bring fire into a magazine. The " True 
 American " is an Abolition paper of the worst stamp ! As 
 such, the peace and safety of this community demand its in- 
 stant and entire suppression. 
 
 In some countries, Mr. Clay might have dreaded summary 
 popular vengeance on his person, or secret murder. He is 
 among a people who abhor mobs, who know no lynch law, 
 and where assassination is unheard of. He has pressed the 
 gatience of his countrymen to its utmost capacity of suffer- 
 ance — they can bear no more, without being traitors to all the 
 trusts reposed in brave and patriot men. Though he has 
 bearded and defied them — attacked the tenure of their pro- 
 perty, and outraged decency by the terms in which he has 
 characterized them, they are too conscious of their strength 
 
c. M. clay's press. 209 
 
 to chafe at insult. They thirst not for his blood, and they 
 would not injure his property. He is a trespasser upon them, 
 they have requested him mildly to desist. He is contuma- 
 cious, and they will remove him by force. Mr. Clay has com- 
 plained in his recent handbills of his indisposition, and charged 
 the people as deficient in courage and magnanimity in moving 
 upon him when he is incapable of defense. If all that be 
 said of him, his purpose, and his means, be true, his indis- 
 position is fortunate. He may rest assured that they will not 
 be deterred by one nor 10,000 such men as he. He can not 
 bully his countrymen. A Kentuckian himself, he should have 
 known Kentuckians better. His weakness is his security. 
 We are armed and resolved — if resistance be attempted, the 
 consequence be on his own head. For our vindication under 
 the circumstances, we appeal to Kentucky and to the world. 
 
 It is therefore resolved' \yj this assembly: — 
 
 1st. That no Abolition press ought to be tolerated in Ken- 
 tucky, and none shall be in this city or its vicinity. 
 
 2d. That if the ofiBce of the "True American" be surren- 
 dered peaceably, no injury shall be done to the building or 
 other property. The presses and printing apparatus shall be 
 carefully packed up and sent out of the State, subject then to 
 Mr. C. M. Clay's order. 
 
 3d. That if resistance be ofi"ered, we will force the office at 
 all hazards, and destroy the nuisance. 
 
 4th. That if an attempt be made to revive the paper here, 
 we will again assemble. 
 
 5th. That we hope C. M. Clay will be advised. For by our 
 regard to our wives, our children, our homes, our property, 
 our country, our honor, wear what name he may, be con- 
 nected with whom he may, whatever arm or party here or 
 elsewhere may sustain him, he shall not publish an Abolition 
 paper here, and this we affirm at the risk, be it of his blood, 
 or our own, or both, or of all he may bring, of bond or free, 
 to aid his murderous hand. 
 
210 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 6th. That the chairman be, and he is hereby, authorized to 
 appoint a committee of sixty of our body who shall be 
 authorized to repair to the office of the " True American," 
 take possession of the press and printing apparatus, pack up 
 the same, and place it at the railroad office for transportation 
 to Cincinnati, and report forthwith to this body. 
 
EICHAED H. MENBFEE. 211 
 
 AN ADDRESS ON THE LIFE AND CHARACTEE OF 
 RICHARD H. MENEFEE, 
 
 Delivered be/ore the Law Society of Transylvania UniveriHy, in Lexington,, Keri' 
 iucky, April 12, 1841. 
 
 In th& month of Septemlber, 1840, Kentucky was called to mourn the death 
 of Richard H. Menefee. A champion in her Legislature, and a star of the 
 first magnitude in the national councils, he stood in the front ranks with 
 those on the list of fame. Though he had not attained his thirty-seeond 
 year, he already stood upon the apex of an immortal pyramid of his own 
 erection. Of generous impulses, possessing talents of the highest order, 
 and an ardent thirst for that glory he acquired, and haying "died ere he 
 reached his prime," the universal sorrow at the time was but natural. On 
 the 12th of the ensuing April, the members of the Law Society of Transyl- 
 vania University met in the chapel of Morrison College, in Lexington, for 
 the purpose of paying a tribute to their lamented associate. Before a large 
 audience, that felt deeply the solemnity ef the occasion, Mr. Marshall 
 arose and delivered the following address. The annals of eulogy and pane- 
 gyric may be sought in vain for a happier piece of composition. Rich in 
 feeling, copious in thought, and glowing with the eloquence of ii. soul 
 gushing its fervor at the grave of a departed friend, it is a monument to 
 the genius and talents of the dead and the living,— equally imperishable 
 to both. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Law Society: — I am not here to re- 
 count in set phrase, and with that courtesy -ffhich the living 
 always pay to the dead, the virtues, real or supposed, of one 
 around whose fate, youth and interesting private relations 
 alone have cast a transient interest. I come not merely to 
 acquit me of a duty to one whom I personally loved and ad- 
 mired, to weave a fading garland for his tomb, or scatter affec- 
 tion's incense over his ashes. Mine is a severer task, a more 
 important duty. I stand here, gentlemen, as a member of a 
 great commonwealth, amid assembled thousands of her citi- 
 
212 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 zens, to mourn with them the blow sudden and overwhelming, 
 which has fallen upon the country. He about whose young 
 brows there clustered most of honor — he, around whose name 
 and character, there gathered most of public hope — the flower 
 of our Kentucky youth, "the rose and expectancy of the fair 
 state," lies uprooted. He, who by the unaided strength of his 
 own great mind, had spurned from his path each obstacle that 
 impeded and rolled back the clouds which darkened his morn- 
 ing march — who in his fresh youth had reached an eminence 
 of fame and of influence, which, to a soul less ardent, might 
 have seemed the topmost pinnacle, but which to him, was only 
 a momentary resting-place, whence, with an undazzled eye and 
 elastic limb, he was preparing to spring still upward and 
 nearer to the sun of glory which glowed above him; while the 
 admiring crowd below were watching with intensest interest 
 each movement of his towering step, each wave of his eagle 
 wing. 
 
 "Why sudden droops his crest? 
 The shaft is sped, the arrow's in Me breast." 
 
 Death canonizes a great name and the seal of the sepulcher 
 excludes from its slumbering tenant the breath of envy. I 
 might fling the reins to fancy and indulge in the utmost lati- 
 tude of panegyric without offense ; the praises of the dead fret 
 not the living. But I am not here upon an ordinary occasion 
 to pronounce a pdmpous eulogy in set terms of vague and 
 general praise. You have directed me to draw the life and 
 character, to delineate the very form and figure of the mind 
 of one, whose moral likeness you wish to inscribe in enduring 
 and faithful colors upon your archives, not only as a memorial 
 of one loved and lost, but as an example and model for the 
 study and imitation of yourselves and successors. It is aot a 
 sample of rhetoric, but a perpetuation of his image, that you 
 seek, as the monument best suited to the subject, as a real 
 and historic standard by which the youth of after times may 
 measure and elevate the idea and the stature of excellence. 
 And surely, if ever there were mirror in which young genius 
 ooiil'd glass and fashion itself; if ever there were mold in 
 
EICHAKD H. MENEFEE. 213 
 
 ■which the forming intellect could be cast in the just and full 
 proportions of graceful energy and perfect strength; he, of 
 whom we are to speak this day, was that mirror and that 
 mold. Would that the artist were equal to his work, would 
 that his mind were fully up to the dignity of his subject; 
 then indeed would I gladly obey your high command, and 
 give to posterity embodied in my land's language, the very 
 form and lineament, the breathing attitude, the intrepid port, 
 the beaming hope, the dauntless energy of a genius which 
 " poverty and disease could not impair, and which death itself 
 destroyed, rather than subdued." Ah, had he but have lived ! 
 on that broad pedestal laid already, he would himself have 
 raised a statue colossal and historic, an individual likeness, 
 but a national monument, tha,n which never did the Grecian 
 chisel, from out the sleeping marble, awake a form of grander 
 proportions or of more enduring beauty. He meditated such 
 a work, and was fast gathering round him the eternal mate- 
 rials. Type of his country, he sought to mingle himself with 
 her existence and her fame, and to transmit his name to 
 remote generations as an epitome of her early genius and her 
 history, and as the most signal example of the power of her 
 institutions, not only for the production, but for the most per- 
 fect development of the greatest talents and the most exalted 
 virtue. 
 
 Richard H. Menepee, whose death clothed this immediate 
 community with mourning, threw a shade over Kentucky, and 
 awakened the sympathies of the whole American public, was 
 born in the town of Owingsville, and county of Bath, 4th 
 December, 1809. His father, Richard Menefeb, was an 
 early emigrant from Virginia. He was a man by trade a 
 potter, and exercised his calling for many years in Bath. 
 Although of exceedingly limited education and originally of 
 very humble fortune, the native strength of his mind and the 
 love of information raised him to very repectable attainments 
 in knowledge, while the integrity of his character, no less 
 than his sagacity, commanded the confidence as well as the 
 respect of all who knew him. He was repeatedly elected to 
 
214 T. p. MAKSHALL. 
 
 the legislature of Kentucky, and served one term in the 
 Senate. The characters and the careers of distinguished men 
 have sometimes been traced to circumstances apparently tri- 
 fling, which even in infancy have been thought to have settled 
 the bent of the mind. The biographer of Napoleon has noted 
 among the earliest and most prominent incidents of his in- 
 fancy, that his first plaything was a miniature cannon, with 
 its mimic equipments. From this first impression, or early 
 predilection, the indelible image of war may have been stamped 
 upon the mind and decided for ever the genius and the passions 
 of the conqueror of Europe. In 1809, Kentucky's great 
 Senator was fast drawing upon himself the gaze of men. The 
 saffron tints of morning had already announced the coming 
 of that orb which has since shone forth with such splendor in 
 the eyes of the civilized world. The father of our Richard 
 had at one time determined to call his son Henry Clay, and 
 indeed the infant statesman and orator wore the name for the 
 first two or three months of his existence. It was subse- 
 quently altered to Richard Hickman, from respect to a warm 
 personal and family friend, but the boy was apprised of the 
 proenomen of his infancy and fired even in childhood by the 
 fame of his great countryman, breathed often to heaven his 
 feryent orison, that he might one day equal the eloquence, 
 the greatness and the reputation of Mr. Clay. That the love 
 of glory was the master-passion of his nature, and that sooner 
 or later some event or circumstance must have roused it into 
 life and action we can not doubt, and yet it may be, that the 
 simple circumstance we have cited, may have marked out 
 the path and determined the object of his ambition. That it 
 made a deep impression upon his childish imagination, is a 
 veritable and very interesting fact in his boyish biography. 
 He was left by his father an orphan at about four years of 
 age, and an estate never large was almost entirely wrecked by 
 mismanagement and that bane of widows and orphans, a law 
 suit — in which it had been left involved. Richard's utmost 
 inheritance of worldly goods did not exceed a few hundred 
 dollars. He seems, till he was about twelve years of age, to 
 
EICHABD H. MENEFEE. 215 
 
 have been indebted almost exclusively to his mother's instruc- 
 tions for the rudiments of knowledge he received. For her 
 he cherished to his latest hour the fondest veneration. He 
 was her champion in boyhood, for sorrow and misfortune fell 
 fast upon her. It was in his mother's defense that the lion 
 of his nature first broke out. Incidents might here be related, 
 exhibiting in rare perfection the depth of filial piety and 
 dauntless heroism in a boy of fifteen, but they involve circum- 
 stances and feelings too delicate for a stranger's touch. In 
 proof of the strength and tenderness of his private affections, 
 it may here be stated, that after he commenced the practice 
 of law, though pressed by the claims of his own family, he 
 devoted a portion of his own slender means to the support of 
 a brother overwhelmed with personal misfortunes and an 
 orphan sister, and continued it till his death. At twelve years 
 of age, so far as I have been able to learn, he first entered a 
 public school. Like steel from flint, the collision of other 
 minds struck instant fire from his own. The first competition 
 brought into full play the passion for distinction, which formed 
 the master principle of his nature. His teacher was astonished 
 at the intense application, surpassing progress and precocious 
 genius of the boy. He predicted to his pupil his future 
 greatness, exhorted him to perseverance and furnished him 
 every facility in his power. With this gentleman, whose name 
 was Tompkins, (it, should be written in letters of gold,) he 
 seems to have remained without interruption for two years, at 
 which period his mother married a second time, and he was 
 removed from school. Clouds and thick darkness gathered 
 now, over his fortunes and his darling hopes. At fourteen, 
 he was summoned to attend at a tavern bar in Owingsville. 
 But the omen of his first name still cheered him on, and the 
 fire which had been first kindled within him, could not be 
 extinguished. He Compromised the matter at home and 
 served at the bar or labored in the field during the summer, 
 for the privilege of school during the winter months. Even 
 this did not last, for want of means, (m.ark that, ye of more 
 prosperous fortunes;) for want of means to defray his tuition 
 
216 T. r. MAESHALL. 
 
 fees, this unconquerable boy exchanged the character of pupil 
 for preceptor at fifteen years of age, and taught what he had 
 learned to others for hire during the winter months, that he 
 might accumulate a fund with which to prosecute his own 
 education thereafter. He continued thus till about his six- 
 teenth year; when, in consequence of unpleasant difficulties 
 with his step-father, he was taken to Mount Sterling by Mr. 
 Stockton, an intimate friend of his deceased father. From 
 this time he seems to have been left to his own guidance, and 
 wrestled alone with his fortune. Upon the division of the 
 wreck of the paternal estate, a negro was assigned to Richard 
 about the period of his removal from home. He sold this 
 slave to his friend, and with the proceeds, together with what 
 he had earned as a preceptor, maintained himself at the 
 public school in Mount Sterling till his eighteenth year, when 
 he entered Transylvania as an irregular Junior. The rules 
 of college would have excluded him from the privilege of 
 examination, and debarred him even from a trial for the 
 honors of his class. But that discipline which fixes a given 
 time for given accomplishments and deems their attainment 
 impossible, save within the limits and in the mode prescribed, 
 was not framed for such as he. The hardy orphan who had 
 been tutor and instructor of others at fifteen, and absolute 
 and unheeded master of himself at sixteen, was not likely to 
 be damped or daunted from his not having passed through a 
 technical routine of studies, based upon ordinary calculations 
 and framed for ordinary minds. He had already trampled 
 upon the legal maxim which fixes one-and-twenty as the age 
 for self-government, already "had his daring boyhood governed 
 men." He gazed in scorn upon the artificial impediment which 
 would have barred him from academic honors, and cleared 
 it at a bound. His intrepid genius, his intense application, 
 and the bold and extra-collegiate range of his information had 
 attracted the eye and the admiration of the celebrated Presi- 
 dent HoLLEY. Through his intercession and influence the 
 strict canon of the University was dispensed with in Richard's 
 behalf; he was admitted to an examination with his class, and 
 
EICHAED H. MENEFEE. 217 
 
 bore away the palm. Upon his return to Mount Sterling his 
 funds were exhausted, and he again became a private tutor, 
 while he prosecuted the study of law with Judge James 
 Trimble. He persevered in his labors and his studies till the 
 year 1830, when upon the death of his friend Stockton, 
 whose affairs required the superintendence of a lawyer, and to 
 whom he held himself bound by a debt of gratitude, in his 
 twenty-first year he obtained a license to practice, and under- 
 took as his first professional act, without charge, to settle and 
 arrange the complicated and embarrassed affairs of his friend. 
 In the fall of 1831 he was enabled to attend the law lectures 
 here, when he became a distinguished member of your society. 
 In the spring of 1832 he received the appointment of com- 
 monwealth's attorney, and in August before he had attained 
 his twenty-third year he was married to the eldest daughter 
 of the late Matthew Jouitt. It is not among the least inter- 
 esting circumstances which concentrate in the union of these 
 two orphans, that the dowerless daughter of Kentucky's most 
 gifted artist should have found a tutor in her childhood every 
 way adequate to form her taste and fashion her understand- 
 ing, and that in the dawning graces of her first womanhood, 
 reflecting back upon its source the light she had borrowed, 
 should have drawn and fastened to her side as friend and 
 protector through life, that same boy preceptor from whose 
 precocious mind her own had drawn its nutriment and its 
 strength. JouiTT and Menepee ! what an union of names, what 
 a nucleus for the public hopes and sympathies to grow and 
 cluster round, to cling and cleave to. And they are united 
 in the person of a boy, a glorious, beauteous boy — upon whose 
 young brow and every feature is stamped the seal of his in- 
 heritance. I have seen this scion of a double stock, through 
 whose young veins is poured in blending currents the double 
 tide of genius and of art. Bless thee Jouitt Menefee, and 
 may heaven which has imparted the broad brow of the states- 
 man orator along with the painter's ambrosial head and 
 glowing eye, may heaven shield and preserve thee boy, from 
 the misfortunes of thy house. 
 
218 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 Mr. Menefee retained his appointment, and located at 
 Mount Sterling, continued the practice of law with extraordi- 
 nary success in the various counties of that mountainous dis- 
 trict till August, 1836, when he was returned the member 
 from Montgomery to the House of Representatives of Ken- 
 tucky. It was the fortune of your speaker to-day, to have 
 served in the same body during that session, and it was at 
 this period that he first saw and became acquainted with the 
 illustrious subject of this discourse. The impression which 
 Mr. Menefee then made was instantaneous and ineffaceable-. 
 He was in his twenty-seventh year, but the lightness of his 
 hair,' his delicate complexion and almost beardless face, and a 
 certain juvenile outline of person, made him look to a tran- 
 sient observer some years younger than he really was. I 
 knew nothing then, nor till long after, of his private history. 
 He stood among his colleagues in legislation, almost an entire 
 stranger. He was surrounded by no peculiar circumstances 
 or associations of influence 'or of interest. No pomp of 
 heraldry blazoned his hitherto obscure name ; no hereditary 
 honors glittered around his pale brow; no troop of influential 
 connexions or family partisans stood ready to pufi" him into 
 prompt notice, or to force him upon fame. Even the inci- 
 dents of his young life, which would have won for his chival- 
 rie spirit an admiring and generous sympathy, were unknown. 
 The storms through which his star had waded in its ascent, 
 the strife perpetual which he had waged from infancy with 
 evil circumstance and most malignant fortune, had rolled over 
 him unknown or unheeded by that world to whose service and 
 applause he had been fighting his way. He came into the 
 lists unattended, without device, armorial bearing, squire, pur- 
 suivant, or herald. Entertaining the views which Mr. Menefee 
 did, it can not be doubted that he regarded the Legislature 
 of Kentucky as an important theatre to him. It was the en- 
 trance into that temple upon whose loftiest turret his eye had 
 been fastened from childhood. The scene was, practically at 
 least, an entirely new one to him. He Avas well aware, no 
 man more so, of the importance of first impressions upon a 
 
RICHARD H. MENEFEE. 219 
 
 body constituted as that of whidi he was a member. One 
 would naturally have expected, from a person situated as he 
 was, great anxiety, not unmixed with bashfulness and timidity 
 in his debut. You might have anticipated, too, the selection 
 of some question of great and general interest, and the care- 
 ful and elaborate preparation, by so young and aspiring a 
 member, of a speech duly laden with flowers, and studded with 
 all the rhetorical gems of trope and figure. No such thing. 
 He threw himself easily and naturally, and with apparent 
 carelessness into debate for the first time, upon a bill entirely 
 private in its character and of not the smallest interest to the 
 house. No sooner had he risen, however, and his bell-tones 
 vibrated through the hall, than every eye and ear were riveted 
 into attention. There was about him an air of practiced ease, 
 a self-possession, a deliberation, as utterly remote from affecta- 
 tion or impudence, as it was entirely free from confusion or 
 timidity. He wore the cheek of a boy, and moved with the 
 tread of a veteran. There was no impatience for display, no 
 ambitious finery, no straining after effect about him, but there 
 was a precision and clearness in his statement, an acuteness, 
 a strength and clearness in his argument, which bespoke a 
 mind not only of the greatest original power, but trained in 
 the severest school of investigation, and to which the closest 
 reasoning was habitual and easy. He seemed to move, too, 
 in his natural element, as though he had so long and so care- 
 fully revolved in his own mind the theatre of public affairs as 
 being the true stage for him, that he stood there, albeit for 
 the first time, without surprise or anxiety. It was upon a 
 motion of his own to reverse a report from the committee of 
 courts of justice upon a bill authorizing the sale of some in- 
 fant's real estate, that he was first heard to speak. The 
 present governor of the Commonwealth was at the head of 
 the committee, and some of the most experienced members 
 of the house, and of the ablest professional men in the coun- 
 try were members of it. The member from Montgomery 
 attacked their report with so much vivacity and such remark- 
 able ability, that they felt themselves compelled to make a 
 
220 T. F. MAESHAIiL. 
 
 regular and formal defense, -which they did seriatim, and it is 
 no reflection upon their talent ta state now, what all felt then 
 to be true, that their young antagonist was a match for the 
 whole. This debate and the occasion of it would have passed 
 from my memory long since, but that they served to develop 
 to my view, for the first time, the character and the powers 
 of a man evidently marked out for greatness, whose subse- 
 quent career was one unbroken series of splendid successes, 
 whose genius then first fairly risen upon the public, within 
 three years from that date, shot into the zenith with an hori- 
 zon stretching to the utmost boundary of the American States. 
 After this first effort, trifling as would seem the occasion, Mr. 
 Menefee was no longer considered in the light of a promising 
 young man. He did not climb gradually into favor and in- 
 fluence with the house, but sprang at once, and with an elastic 
 ease truly surprising, into the position not only of a debater 
 of the highest order, but of a leading mind, whose ripened 
 judgment and matured thought rendered his counsels as valu- 
 able as the eloquence in which they were conveyed was strik- 
 ing and delightful. He was a member of the committee of 
 finance, and reported and carried in the face of the most vio- 
 lent opposition, what is usually termed the "equalizing law," 
 by which the ordinary revenue, without an increase of taxa- 
 tion, but by including new subjects, has gained upward of 
 thirty thousand dollars per annum. The debates in the Ken- 
 tucky Legislature are not reported, and little attention is paid, 
 and little interest manifested throughout the country in what 
 is passing at the capitol in Frankfort. Yet upon the narrower 
 and more obscure theatre which he then trod, did Mr. Mene- 
 fee display during that winter, powers and qualities which in 
 Washington would, as they afterward did, have covered him 
 with glory and fixed his name. Compelled, by the par- 
 ticular interest which I then represented, (being a member 
 from the city of Louisville,) to be thrown into frequent col- 
 lision with Mr. Menefee in the debates of the House, I had 
 ample opportunity both to know and to feel his intense 
 power as a disputant. Attracted powerfully by the whole 
 
EICHAED H. MENEPEE. 221 
 
 structure and style of the man, I studiously sought occasions 
 for a close and critical observation of him. To men curious 
 in such things he was a subject altogether worthy of study. 
 Accident threw me somewhat into his personal confidence, 
 which furnished better opportunities of ascertaining the dis- 
 tinctive traits of his character and the habitual complexion of 
 his mind, than the mere contests of argument and public dis- 
 cussion would have afforded. In the course of the session, he 
 was heard upon every question of State policy and always 
 with an attention which showed how deep he was in the con- 
 fidence of the House. Upon a proposition to reduce the sala- 
 ries of the State engineers, to which he was opposed, he took 
 occasion to discuss the system of internal improvement, as it 
 is called, in which he showed that lawyer as he was, he had 
 found time to study deeply the sources of national wealth, 
 and the principles of public economy. Upon a proposition 
 of his own which he lost, to place the salaries of the judges 
 at Louisville upon the same footing with the other judges of 
 the Commonwealth, he displayed, in the most eminent degree, 
 the peculiar traits of his genius. It was not the discrimina- 
 tion in the amount of the salaries to which he objected. It 
 was that principle in the law, which virtually made the Com- 
 monwealth's judges at Louisville to be paid by, and of course 
 to be dependent, to a certain extent, upon that corporation, 
 which he resisted and exposed. But the master effort of his 
 mind that winter was on the bill to repeal the law of 1833, 
 prohibiting the importation of slaves. Never yet have I heard 
 or read among all the discussions to which that law has given 
 rise, an argument so masterly, so statesmanlike, so trium- 
 phant as that of Mr. Menefee. Profoundly practical, and 
 standing utterly aloof from the extremes of fanaticism, he 
 displayed the deepest knowledge of the natural foundations 
 of social prosperity, and the most cautious regard for existing 
 institutions. Equally exempt from the rash spirit of political 
 empiricism which would tear the subsisting frame of society 
 to pieces, in search of that which is abstractly good, and from 
 that worse than cowardice, which, shutting its eyes upon what 
 
222 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 is absolutely and demonstrably evil, would deepen and extend 
 it, for the wise reason that it is not perfectly curable, that 
 desperate quackery, which would spread a cancer over the 
 whole body, because it could not be safely extirpated, he 
 neither lauded slavery as a blessing, nor dreamed with crazy 
 philanthropists, or murderous incendiaries, of its sudden and 
 violent extinction. He adhered to the law of 1833 as a mean 
 of checking the increase of an evil which could not now be 
 prevented. It is a public misfortune, and a drawback upon 
 Mr. Menefee's fame, brilliant as it is, that his speeches in the 
 legislature of Kentucky were not preserved. Regarding him, 
 as I have already said, with the deepest interest, and under 
 circumstances very favorable for observation, I describe him 
 as he impressed himself upon me. The great characteristic 
 of his mind was strength, his predominant faculty was reason, 
 the aim of his eloquence was to convince. With an imagina- 
 tion rich, but severe and chaste, of an elocution clear, nervous 
 and perfectly ready, he employed the one as the minister, and 
 the other as the vehicle of demonstration. He dealt not in 
 gaudy ornament or florid exhibition ; no gilded shower of 
 metaphors drowned the sense of his discourse. He was 
 capable of fervid invective, vehement declamation, and scath- 
 ing sarcasm ; but strength, strength was the pervading quality, 
 and there was argument even in his denunciation. " No giant 
 form set forth his common hight," no stentor voice proclaimed 
 a bully in debate ; yet did he possess the power of impres- 
 sion, deep, lasting impression, of interesting you not only in 
 what he said, but in himself, of stamping upon the memory 
 his own image, in the most eminent degree, and in the most 
 extraordinary manner, of any man of his age whom it has 
 been my fortune to encounter. " Bonum virum facile cre- 
 deres, magnum Ubenter." Although removed the farthest 
 possible from the afifectation of mystery, or any asserted 
 and offensive pretension to superiority over other men, and 
 although his manner was exempt entirely from the charge of 
 haughtiness, still, as he appeared at that time, he loved not 
 familiarity and courted no intimacy. He was bland, cour- 
 
EICHAED H. MENEFEE. 223 
 
 teous, and perfectly respectful in his intercourse; still, there 
 was a distance, an undefinable sort of reserve, unmixed with 
 pride, but full of dignity, keeping frivolity aloof, and attract- 
 ing at once your curiosity and your interest. Upon his fore- 
 head, which was broad, and full and very commanding, were 
 traced the indisputable lines of intellect and genius. His pale 
 and delicate brow was stamped with the gravity and the care 
 of premature manhood. About his lip and mouth were the 
 slight, but living and indelible traits of a resolved and ambi- 
 tious spirit. The whole countenance was that of a man who 
 had suffered and struggled, but who had conquered the past 
 and was prepared to grapple fearlessly with the future. But 
 the master expression, the natural language which breathed 
 from his face, form, step, gesture, and even the almost femi- 
 nine tone of his voice, and which contrasted so strangely with 
 the delicacy of the whole, was energy, unfainting, indomi- 
 table, though curbed and regulated energy, which could sus- 
 tain him through all danger and under all fortune, and which 
 would and must bear him on to the utmost mark at which his 
 ambition might aim, and to which his talents were at all ade- 
 quate. There was nothing restless or impatient about him. 
 His was deliberate, concentrated, disciplined energy. He had 
 that managed calmness of general manner, which so often be- 
 tokens a fiery and excitable temperament, but under the most 
 perfect control. Never man was more entirely master of him- 
 self than Mr. Menefee. His conversation corresponded with 
 and deepened the impression made by his public speeches, and 
 a close examination of his whole appearance. He had a,ll the 
 quickness and penetration of a man of true genius, but with- 
 out a spark of wildness or eccentricity. There was no dreamy 
 idealism, no shadowy romance, no morbid sentimentalism about 
 him. The occasional splendor of his illustrations proved him 
 to be sure possessed of an imagination not only grand and 
 lofty, but exquisitely sensible of the beautiful and the soft, 
 but it was the ally, not the principal ; and an ally upon which 
 his sovereign reason, abounding in its own resources, leaned 
 
 but little and drew but seldom. His fancy drew her inspira- 
 15 
 
224 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 tion from the natural fountains around and within him. It 
 was not even tinged with the sickly light of modern fiction. 
 His whole mind was eminently healthy. His was the serious- 
 ness of determination, unmixed with gloom or melancholy. 
 The purity of his language, which was remarkable for its 
 beauty as well as its precision, declared a mind imbued with 
 elegant letters, but there was an antique severity in his taste, 
 a marble firmness as well as smoothness in his style, which 
 spoke of the hardihood and muscle of the Grecian masters, 
 those first teachers and eternal fountains of poetry and elo- 
 quence.* But neither Mr. Menefee's conversation, nor his 
 attainments, nor his talents, eminent as they all were, sur- 
 prised me so much as the matured and almost rigid tone of 
 his character, the iron control which he exercised over him- 
 self, the cool, practical and experienced views which he took 
 of the world, and the elevation, consistency and steadiness of 
 his purposes. These were the qualities which made his talents 
 useful ; these were the qualities which, young as he was, gave 
 him such absolute hold and command of the public confidence ; 
 these were the qualities which adapted him to the genius and 
 bound him to the hearts of his countrymen, without which he 
 might have been brilliant, but never could have been great. 
 
 He had early ranged himself with that great party in poli- 
 tics, whose protracted and arduous struggles have at last found 
 their consummation, and whose principles have been ratified 
 by the judgment of the nation in the election of General Har- 
 rison to the presidency. He belonged to that class of minds, 
 who, in every country and under every form of government, 
 are found the unflinching advocates of rational and regulated 
 liberty, a liberty founded in principles fixed and eternal, and 
 which is only safe under the shield and cover of a law change- 
 less and inviolable by the government, equally supreme and 
 binding upon the rulers and upon the people. The imperial 
 
 * That he was familiar with the historians and orators of antiquity, parti- 
 Oularly of Athens, I am able to state of my own knowledge. Those who 
 knew him at college, say that he won his academic honors by his superiority 
 in mathematics and the languages. 
 
EICHAED H. MENES'EE. 225 
 
 maxim, "voluntas principis Jiabet vigorem legia," he rejected 
 utterly. He loathed despotism in all its forms, and wherever 
 lodged, whether in the hands of one, the many, or the few. 
 Born in a monarchy, he would have died as Hampden died, in 
 the assertion of legal limitations upon the prerogative. Born- 
 in a republic, he clung to the constitutional restrictions upon 
 the rapacious passions of faction. He regarded the courtier 
 cringing at the footstool of a throne, and the demagogue laud- 
 ing the absolute power of a mob, as equally the foes of free- 
 dom, and the just objects of patriot execration. He under- 
 stood the term people as comprehending every interest and 
 every individual, and looked upon that system alone as free, 
 which protected each against the arbitrary power even of the 
 whole. He regarded government as something framed for the 
 defense of the weak against the strong, of the few against the 
 many, and considered human rights as only safe, where fixed 
 laws, and not the fluctuating caprices of men and parties, 
 were supreme. Strength and numbers are absolute in a state 
 of savage nature ; they need no laws nor magistracy for their 
 support. The rights of the weak and the few, can only be 
 secured by the incorporation of the eternal principles of lib- 
 erty and justice in a constitution impassable to power and 
 immutable by party. The splendid popularity of a favorite 
 chief, blinded not his reason, the roar of triumphant faction 
 deafened not his conscience, the' proscribing genius of a power 
 which punished' with inexorable severity, or rewarded with 
 unbounded profusion, appalled not his moral courage, nor 
 shook for one moment his native integrity. Young, poor, tal- 
 ented and aspiring, still he followed where his principles led 
 him, and battled long on the side of a feeble and almost over- 
 whelmed minority of his countrymen. To the cause which he 
 espoused, through all its fortunes, he adhered with unbroken 
 faith and consistency, and lived just long enough to witness 
 its final and complete success. 
 
 Mr. Menefee passed from the Legislature of Kentucky into 
 the national councils, where he took his. seat in the lower 
 house of Congress at the call sessioia ©f 1835. He is said to 
 
226 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 have exhibited during the canvass, extraordinary powers of 
 popular eloquence, and an unequalled grace and facility in 
 mingling with the great body of the people, demonstrating 
 thereby the versatility of a mind whose strength alone I have 
 been contemplating. The same destiny (for it seemed no less) 
 attended him in, Congress, which had marked his entrance upon 
 State legislation. There were no gradations in his congress- 
 ional history. He comprehended at once, and as if by instinct, 
 the new scene in which he was called to act; and no sooner 
 did he appear, than he was recognised as a statesman and a 
 leader. The intrepid boldness of his character, and precocious 
 strength of his genius, seem to have smitten all parties with 
 astonishment. Some of the leading men of the political party 
 to which he was opposed, pronounced him the most extraor- 
 dinary man of his age, who had till then, appeared in Con- 
 gress. He encountered hostility in his upward flight, (when 
 did soaring genius fail to do it?) and meaner birds would 
 have barred him from his pathway to the skies. With crim- 
 soned beak and bloody talons, he rent his way through the 
 carrion crew, and moved majestically up to bathe his plumage 
 in the sun. Never did a career more dazzlingly splendid open 
 upon the eye of young ambition, than burst upon Mr. Mene- 
 fee. The presses teemed with his praise, the whole country 
 was full of his name ; yet did he wear his honors with the 
 ease of a familiar dress. He trod the new and dizzy path 
 with a steady eye, and that same veteran step which was so 
 eminently his characteristic. Around his path there seem to 
 have been thrown none of those delusions, which haunt the 
 steps of youth and inexperience. All was stern reality and 
 truth. He maintained his character undimmed, and his posi- 
 tion unshaken, till the end of his term, and then this wonder- 
 ful man imposed upon himself, his spirit and his ambition, 
 that iron control of which I have spoken, and voluntarily 
 retired from a theatre the most elevated and commfinding, 
 upon which genius and ambition like his could engage in the 
 gigantic strife for undying honor. At twenty-nine years of 
 age, Mr,. Menefee found himself upon a summit to which the 
 
EICHAED H. MENEFEE. 227 
 
 dreams of youth and hope could scarce have aspired. He 
 alone seemed neither astonished nor confounded by the hight 
 to which he had arisen. In 1837, an obscure young lawyer, 
 scarce known beyond the precincts of his native highland dis- 
 trict; in 1839, he stood forth on the world's great theatre in 
 acknowledged greatness, the predictions of his first tutor re- 
 alized, the prayer of his childhood granted. He stood on that 
 eminence so long and so gloriously occupied by the man whose 
 name he once bore, and whose fame had been the pillar of fire 
 by which he guided his footsteps through the long, dark, peril- 
 ous and unfriended night of his boyhood; and he stood there 
 at an age which threw even that example into the shade. The 
 draught which he drank, so far from intoxicating his under- 
 standing, served only to refresh and invigorate his spirit for 
 the work set before him. He surveyed calmly from the hight 
 on which he stood, the prospect stretched beneath him; he 
 quaffed the full beams of the sun of glory which glowed above 
 him, then turning to the gentle flower at his side, which he 
 had vowed to shelter and defend, to her who had loved and 
 trusted him in obscurity and penury, before the world, now 
 ready to do him homage, had learned his transcendent talents 
 and inestimable worth, and folding her, all bright and blush- 
 ing in the light of her husband's glory, "Dp his bosom, he de- 
 scended without a sigh, to vindicate her confidence and toil 
 for her support. 
 
 He was now, though steeped in poverty, in the full posses- 
 sion of fame. He was known universally. Over his character 
 there hung no doubt nor shadow. He had but to select his 
 ground, to choose his theatre. His talents, his acquirements, 
 his habits, all fitted him eminently for the bar. A self-made 
 scholar, he was of indefatigable application — with a mind of 
 singular acuteness naturally, and now much enlarged and 
 strengthened by the great topics it had grasped, and the 
 powerful collisions into which it had been thrown, he was 
 peculiarly fitted for the largest and most comprehensive views 
 of jurisprudence. Of an integrity stainless as the untrodden 
 snow, and without one vice to consume his time or warp his 
 
228 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 career, lie was sure to devote himself to the interests of his 
 clients. In the summer of 1839 he located himself in Lexing- 
 ton. There was no dreary noviciate with him. He stepped 
 into the forum armed at all points, and husiness flowed in 
 upon him in a full and rich tide. Never did any man occupy 
 such a position in Kentucky as did Mr. Menefee in the open- 
 ing of his professional career in Lexington. The public sym- 
 pathies rallied around to cheer and to support him in a 
 manner utterly unknown in any other case. Each step of 
 his progress but deepened the interest and vindicated more 
 triumphantly the opinion entertained of him. Men flocked in 
 crowds to hear him speak, his counsel was sought and relied 
 on, and his services engaged, when ever it was practicable, at 
 points distant from the scene of his immediate operations. 
 At a period of life when most men are just rising into busi- 
 ness, he was steeped, actually overwhelmed with the weightiest, 
 most honorable and most profitable causes. The sun of pros- 
 perity broke out upon him with a warmth and brilliancy 
 entirely without example. All difficulties had vanished from 
 before him. In the past he found nothing with which to up- 
 braid himself. The rough rOad through which he had journeyed 
 from childhood was marked throughout with trophies of his 
 triumphant spirit. His country regarded him as public pro- 
 perty, and waiting with fond impatience the attainment of 
 that pecuniary independence which his erect and honorable 
 nature deemed essential to his character, stood ready with 
 open arms to receive him into her service and crown him 
 with her choicest honors. Fortune was absolutely within his 
 grasp. He was the slave of honor, not the drudge of avarice. 
 It was independence that he sought, independence for himself 
 and his nestlings. He had tasted the bitter fruits of early 
 poverty, and although he had triumphed, he would not doom 
 his little ones to their father's struggles and sufferings. He 
 onust have attained the object of his pursuit even before he 
 had reached his manhood's prime, and then he could have 
 turned him again without a crime, to the pursuits of ambition, 
 again have mounted the solar hights whence his moral 
 
EICHAED H. MENEFEE. 229 
 
 nature had forced his intellectual down. For one short year 
 Mr. Menefee's delicate frame sustained the fiery energies of 
 his mind. In the spring of 1840 in reply to a note from my- 
 self on professional business, he alluded to the decline of his 
 health in a tone of sadness, not despondence — his was a soul 
 that never desponded — which struck me as ominous and pro- 
 phetic. Disease had indeed fastened its fangs upon his body, 
 its force was vain against his mind. With rapidly declining 
 health he persevered in his business, till in September, in a 
 case of vast magnitude, in which Messrs. Clay and Wickliffe 
 were both employed against him, he put forth, for the last 
 time, his immortal energies at the bar. Jiike the Hebrew giant 
 his last effort was the greatest. Oh, would to God that he 
 had been or could have been induced to spare himself! But 
 the occasion had come, and the 'ruling passion, strong in death, 
 broke out with irresistible force, to throw its radiance over his 
 funeral pile. Ambition has been called the last infirmity of 
 noble minds. To me it seems to constitute their essence and 
 their strength. I mean not the love of power, but that higher 
 ambition, the love, the yearning after that imperishable fame, 
 which shines through far generations, and with an increasing 
 light over the memory of great and glorious talents, greatly 
 and gloriously exerted in the cause of justice and mankind. 
 This appeared to me to be the master passion of Mr. 
 Menefee's soul. He must have been conscious of an extra- 
 ordinary fate and an extraordinary genius. He must have 
 appeared to himself as he certainly did to all others, a man 
 marked out from birth for great actions and the most splendid 
 distinction. What had he not achieved? His friends may 
 challenge the history of this country for a parallel. I have 
 said that I had observed him closely in 1836. I have had 
 intimate opportunities since his retirement from Congress. I 
 have conversed with him since his disease was distinctly 
 developed, and the qualities which struck me with so much 
 force upon our first acquaintance, appeared to gather strength 
 with time. There was an unsparing intensity in his mind, a 
 concentration of the whole soul upon his pursuits, a haste, a 
 
230 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 rapidity, as though he feared the sun of life should go down 
 ere the goal assigned to his genius had been attained. Was 
 he conscious, (such a suspicion has sometimes flashed across 
 me, and from remembered conversations gathered strength,) 
 could he have been conscious that the seeds of early death 
 ■were implanted in his original constitution, and was it this 
 which spurred his fiery soul to such gigantic and unpausing 
 strides upon his road to greatness? Himself, at all events, he 
 did not and he would not spare. This was his only crime; 
 the generous martyr; for this, and this alone, can his country 
 reproach him. Perchance the opportunity of measuring him- 
 self with that great genius, whom he had proposed originally 
 as his standard, struck upon his heroic temperament, and 
 roused the poetry of his nature, as being a meet finale to a 
 life like his. Be that as it may, he dashed at the opportunity 
 as new fledged eaglets dash into the sun. He did measure 
 himself, and, in that effort, pouring forth his genius and his 
 life, reached the consummation of his first wishes, the utmost 
 point of his childhood's prayer. He was measured and found 
 a match for one whose thunders long have shaken the Ameri- 
 can Senate and who was erst the monarch of the forum. Mr. 
 Menefee sank gradually from September. His waning life 
 sank, not his spirit. When apprised at last that his hour had 
 arrived, "Brief summons," was the reply, and he manned 
 himself to die with dignity. His sense of duty, the energy 
 and collectedness of his nature and his cautious regard for 
 others, were strikingly manifested by the last act of his life. 
 He made his will, executed a mortgage to indemnify a friend 
 who was responsive for him, and ere the next sun had risen, 
 his own had set for ever. 
 
 Thus perished, in the thirty-second year of his life, Richard 
 H. Menefee, a man designed by nature and himself, for in- 
 evitable greatness. A man of the rarest talents and of the 
 most commanding character. A man whose moral qualities 
 were as faultless, as his intellectual constitution was vigorous 
 and brilliant. A man to whose advancing eminence there 
 was no limit but the constitution of his country, had not the 
 
RICHARD H. MENEFEE. 231 
 
 energies of his mind proved too mighty for the material ele- 
 ments which enclosed them. 
 
 " 'T was his own genius gave the final blow, 
 And helped to plant the wound that laid him low. 
 So the struck Eagle stretched upon the plain, 
 No more through rolling clouds to soar again, 
 Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart. 
 And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart. 
 Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel 
 He nursed the pinion which impelled the steel. 
 And the same plumage that had warmed his nest, 
 Drank the last life-drop from his bleeding breast" 
 
232 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 SPEECH ON THE BILL TO APPROPRIATE THE PROCEEDS OF 
 
 THE SALES OF THE PUBLIC LANDS, AND 
 
 GRANT PRE-EMPTION RIGHTS, 
 
 Delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States on the 6th of 
 
 July, 1841. 
 
 John Quincy Adams pronounced this the ablest speech he had ever heard 
 upon the subject. This, especially just after having heard Mr. Clay's 
 great land speechj is no small eulogium. 
 
 "The bill to appropriate the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, and 
 to grant preemption rights," being under consideration in Committee of 
 the Whole upon the state of the Union, after Mr. Rayser, of North Caro- 
 lina, had closed, Mr. Makshall, of Kentucky, obtained the floor at half- 
 past five P. M., and spoke as follows: 
 
 Mr. Chairman : — I would apologize for entering upon the 
 discussion of this question at this hour, and would, moreover, 
 pledge myself to brevity, hut that, in examining the speeches 
 made upon this floor, I have uniformly observed that the 
 longest of them have been preceded by such apologies and 
 promises. I shall, therefore, proceed without preface, or ex- 
 ordium, to state the answer to the more important objections 
 urged so eloquently against the bill yesterday, by the distin- 
 guished gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Wise,] and in a very 
 general manner the leading principles upon which it reposes 
 for support in the judgment of its friends. I gave an atten- 
 tive ear to the gentleman from Virginia through the entire 
 space of three hours and a half. I listened to him (I had 
 almost said with pleasure) at least with an interest, albeit a 
 painful one, so absorbing as to destroy all consciousness of 
 the length of time consumed by his speech. The gentleman 
 premised, that he had on a former occasion fully discussed the 
 principles of the bill, and that for the present he would confine 
 
THE LAND BILL, 233 
 
 himself to the objections which existed in his mind to the de- 
 tails ; yet, when once embarked on this great measure, he found 
 it impossible to confine himself within the limits prescribed. 
 Borne away by the impetuosity of his own genius, he directed 
 his fire at the whole measure, principle and detail — origin, 
 progress, and ultimate effect ; he struck at it root and branch ; 
 he raked it from stem to stern — hull, masts, and rigging. Such 
 was the power of the gentleman's declamation, and such is the 
 influence of genius even in its errors, that I found my pre- 
 conceived, and, as I thought, well settled ideas, not only in 
 relation to this bill, but as to the nature of this Government, 
 and the relations of the several parts of our republican em- 
 pire to each other, thrown into confusion, and my understand- 
 ing so enveloped in the smoke from his artillery, that it was 
 not till I sought my pillow in the calm and in the silence of 
 the night, that I was enabled to recur to the habitual, and as 
 I still believe, the clear and correct, contemplation of all the 
 matters handled by the gentleman from Virginia. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the bill upon your table proposes, generally, 
 to distribute among the several States of this Union the pro- 
 ceeds of the sales of the public domain, in the proportion that 
 their federal numbers bear to each other. It reserves to the 
 General Government the management and administra.tion of 
 the sales. It fixes the maximum price, and provides for the 
 cessation of the law in case of war. To nine of the new States 
 it gives ten per centum on the net profits of the sales of the 
 land within their territory, after the 31st December, 1841. 
 These are the chief provisions which encountered the gentle- 
 man's denunciation and invective. To the right of preemp- 
 tion granted to settlers under certain conditions, he was under- 
 stood to make no particular objection. 
 
 The gentleman from Virginia sees consolidation in every 
 thing. The sovereignty of the States is threatened by this 
 Government in every mode of its action. There is consolida- 
 tion in debt; there is consolidation in surplus; there is con- 
 solidation in distribution. Under this bill he detects the as- 
 sumption of State debts, internal improvement, and a protective 
 
234 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 tariff; ke treats it as in fact a distribution of the customs, and 
 a declaration of war upon the part of free labor against slave 
 labor. Sir, in what sense can the distribution of the proceeds 
 of the public lands be considered as an assumption of the State 
 debts by this Government? I understand by the assumption 
 of the State debts, their consolidation into one, to be dis- 
 charged out of the national funds raised by equal taxation. 
 The States which, like North Carolina, owe nothing, or whose 
 debts, like those of Kentucky, are comparatively small, would 
 be taxed, not in proportion to their debts, but in proportion 
 to their population, to pay off a debt contracted without their 
 authority, and bearing no proportion in the several elements 
 of which it is composed, to the amounts to be paid by the 
 several States for its extinction. That a community shall be 
 taxed to pay a debt contracted without its authority, is, in 
 fact, taxation without representation. Practically, it were bet- 
 ter, safer, more free, that the Legislature of Pennsylvania 
 should have the power of laying an equal tax upon the whole 
 Union to pay a debt contracted by the general authority, than 
 that she should have the separate power to contract the debt, 
 leaving Congress to impose the general tax. The war debt of 
 the States at the close of the Revolution is very clearly and 
 easily distinguishable from the present internal improvement 
 debt. The war debt was really the debt of the Union, and, 
 although contracted by the States separately, it was for the 
 liberty and independence of the whole. It was' for the com- 
 mon good, and should have been discharged from the common 
 funds. Ingenuity itself can not liken the distribution of na- 
 tional property among the several States, upon a principle 
 strictly of federal equality, the basis both of representation 
 and taxation, to the consolidation and assumption of unequal 
 debts contracted by State authority alone, to be paid out of 
 national funds raised by equal taxation. 
 
 It is further contended, strenuously, and with an air of most 
 triumphant confidence, that this is, in fact, a distribution of 
 the customs. That the General Government proposes to levy 
 taxes merely for the purpose of distribution. The gentleman 
 
THE LAND BILL. 235 
 
 from Virginia, treating the Government as trustee of two sep- 
 arate funds, files his bill in equity for an account between the 
 customs and the public lands. He sits as master commissioner, 
 and finds that the whole expense of the administration of the 
 public domain exceed the whole receipts into the Treasury 
 from the sales, and decrees that the lands must be charged 
 with this difference, and that it must be reimbursed before 
 there is any thing to distribute. I object to this mode of set- 
 tlement. That the expenses of the sales and administration 
 have exceeded the receipts from the public lands, may well be 
 contested. Waiving, however, any dispute as to the fact, and 
 admitting it to be as stated, nay, charging them with every 
 thing, the purchase money paid for part, the Indian wars — 
 every thing I say — and credit them with nothing by receipts 
 from the sales, suppose them given away to those who have 
 settled them, and political arithmetic still discloses a balance 
 scarcely susceptible of numerical statement in favor of the 
 lands against the customs. When the General Government 
 grants its lands, although it is in fee, she reserves the right 
 to tax, through her custom-houses, the consumption by the 
 grantee of all articles of foreign growth or manufacture. 
 
 Suppose the vast domain comprehending the new States un- 
 settled and unsold. Strike out both receipt and expenditure; 
 hurl back, if imagination be capable of such an achievement — 
 hurl back Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, into their primeval, yet re- 
 cent wilderness, and what becomes of all the revenue through 
 the custom-houses drawn from the enormous consumption of 
 these States? I speak of revenue already received and ex- 
 pended, saying nothing of what is to arise through all coming 
 time. In estimating the receipts of the General Government 
 from the public lands, it is a most narrow mode of calculation 
 to limit the revenue drawn from this source to the one dollar 
 and one quarter per acre paid by the grantee. It is after the 
 sale and settlement that revenue begins. The Government 
 might, indeed, have settled the lands by donees, and still have 
 established thereby a fund of credit upon which the customs 
 might have drawn without limit and for ever. 
 
236 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 This is a question of imperial policy and imperial equity, 
 and must be settled upon other and more enlarged principles 
 than govern such a suit in chancery as the gentleman from 
 Virginia has instituted. Credit the public lands by all their 
 countless tenantry have paid into the coffers of the State, and 
 the balance would be fearful against the customs. But we 
 not Only do not claim this from the lands already sold, but we 
 have surrendered it through the constitution to the United 
 States, over all the eight hundred millions of acres yet re- 
 maining to be sold. Distribute the price paid for the land 
 among the States hereafter, and still as they settle, and new 
 members of the conTederacy spring into existence, the General 
 Government reserves to itself the exclusive possession of the 
 most fruitful source of revenue through the duties, a source 
 widening, deepening, becoming more copious and exuberant 
 with the progress of settlement and distribution. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the fund proposed to be distributed is no 
 more raised by taxation than it is indebted to the customs. 
 The revenue raised from the sale of the public lands is not a 
 tax; it is distinct, eternally distinct, in its nature and its 
 origin, from the revenue raised by duties, or in any other way. 
 
 The money which the Government receives from the grantee 
 of a section of land is for a consideration of many times the 
 value paid. The man who gives one dollar and one quarter 
 for an acre of land, which, by the application of a moderate 
 degree of his own labor, and the rapid growth of society 
 around, must soon be worth twenty, thirty, in many instances 
 one hundred times that sum, can scarcely be persuaded that 
 he is paying a tax. The proceeds of the sale of the public 
 lands, then, compared with the actual value of the grant made, 
 the thing transferred, more nearly resemble a donation than a 
 tax. It differs from the customs as much in its origin as in 
 its nature. The gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Johnson] has 
 saved all who come after him in this debate any trouble in the 
 investigation of this branch of the subject. He has traced the 
 title to the public domain back to the several deeds of cession 
 from the States — deeds executed before the adoption of the 
 
THE LAXD BILL. 237 
 
 federal constitution, and has shown that the rights both granted 
 and reserved in them, remain unaffected by that instrument. 
 The war of the Revolution was a common cause. It was held, 
 at its close, that the vast unsettled territory within the char- 
 tered limits of the several States, having been rent from the 
 crown of England by the joint exertions, blood and treasure, 
 of all the colonies, did in equity become thereby the common 
 property of the whole. To avoid all territorial disputes, and 
 the interminable diflSiculty of a division of the lands them- 
 selves among States situated so widely apart, and many of 
 them so remote from the territory to be divided, it was deter- 
 mined, in the magnanimous spirit of that immortal age, to 
 cede the unsettled and almost boundless wilderness to the 
 common Government, for the "use and benefit of such of the 
 United States as shall become members of the federal alliance 
 of the said States, and for no other use or purpose whatso- 
 ever." Such is the uniform language of the deeds of cession. 
 In the preamble to the statute of New York, authorizing the 
 cession, it is said, "That the waste and uncultivated territory 
 within the limits or claims of certain States ought to be 
 appropriated as a common fund for the expenses of the war." 
 Thus was the Government of the United States invested 
 legally, formally, and by deed, with the title, as trustee, for 
 the several States composing, or who should thereafter com- 
 pose, the confederacy, and charged with the expenses of the 
 war. The deeds are strictly and technically deeds of trust. 
 They are not grants of political power, but conveyances of 
 landed property charged with specific debts, and, for the use 
 and benefit of specified communities, clear, precise, technical. 
 A trust estate, in land, differs as much from the sovereign 
 power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, etc., as the 
 revenue received from the sale of land does from that col- 
 lected by a duty lipon the importation of a cask of wine. 
 But I will press this view no farther. I will pass by the 
 legal and strict right of the States to this fund, incontestable 
 as the gentleman from Maryland has shown it to be, and con- 
 sider it as a great practical question, bearing upon the present 
 
238 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 condition of the people of the United States, their credit, their 
 interest, and their general welfare. The gentleman from Vir- 
 ginia [Mr. Wise] assumes, as settled and incontrovertible, that 
 Congress have no power over the internal improvement of the 
 States ; and contendipg that the money to be distributed by 
 this bill is intended to be applied to that object, or to the 
 payment of debts contracted on that account, argues that we 
 are endeavoring to do indirectly what we are prohibited from 
 doing directly. We shall not appropriate any thing to the 
 connection of the several parts of the vast country whose 
 commerce, foreign and domestic, we are appointed to regulate ; 
 nor shall we distribute among the local governments even 
 that which is their own, lest they should apply it to the de- 
 velopment of those hidden stores which Nature has every 
 where provided throughout this favored land, for the comfort 
 and enjoyment of men, and only concealed that she might 
 stimulate his industry, and invigorate his nature. Internal 
 improvement can not be carried on without revenue. The 
 States are cut off from the easiest and most fruitful sources 
 through duties upon commerce. Those who oppose this bill 
 seem to dread any increase of the duties upon the part of the 
 General Government, lest there should be revived a protective 
 tariff. What are we to infer? Is it that the General Govern- 
 ment has no power but over war and foreign negotiation? Is 
 it that she is impotent in peace, without authority, direct or 
 indirect, to advance the industry, facilitate the intercourse, 
 strengthen the credit, and unfold the natural resources of the 
 country? Is it that she shall be compelled to lean upon the 
 public domain, granted under the conditions which I have 
 shown, and to eke it out by direct taxation for the revenue 
 necessary to the execution of the slender and circumscribed 
 powers which the argument leaves it? Are the States pro- 
 hibited from raising revenue from commerce? And shall the 
 General Government leave idle and unexerted the sovereign 
 and most productive power of impost and duty upon such a 
 trade as ours — a power expressly and exclusively granted — 
 about which even strict constructionists can not dispute, and 
 
THE LAND BILL. 239 
 
 throw the national expenditure upon the same resources, to 
 ■which and to which alone the States are allowed to look for 
 revenue? Is she to abandon what is exclusive, and resort to 
 what is concurrent, and what will be sufficiently burdened by 
 State necessities for a long time to come ? And for what 
 reason ? Are we to abandon the clearest dictates of economi- 
 cal finance, lest, by the imposition of duties upon foreign 
 commerce, incidental protection should flow to American 
 industry? — lest, by restoring to the States property origi- 
 nally their own and ceded to a common trustee for their 
 own use and benefit as States, their credit should be 
 strengthened, and they enabled to prosecute those great do- 
 mestic works which they alone, according to the argument, 
 have the right to prosecute ? This Government must not lean 
 upon the customs for its expenditure, although they be exclu- 
 sively by the constitution a national fund for national pur- 
 poses — because, by so doing, they will leave other branches 
 of revenue, to which the States are entitled, concurrently, 
 untouched ; and thus, by the action of this Government in the 
 choice of resources, the States may be permitted to do for 
 themselves that which we are told the General Government 
 can not do directly. Sir, is not this a strange argument for 
 States rights gentlemen to employ ? Can it be better answered 
 than by the statement of it? Gentlemen from the South have 
 not always reasoned thus. The leader of the States rights 
 party, the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, [Mr. 
 Calhoun,] once held that the General Government had the 
 power over internal improvement under the right to make 
 war. His great and expanded mind devised and recommended 
 a general and magnificent plan of intercommunication by 
 roads and canals between the several portions of the republic, 
 as auxiliary and directly referable to the national defense. 
 And, sir, should war's rude summons again awake our land, 
 we shall feel that the facilities furnished by the State im- 
 provements for the transportation of troops and provisions, 
 are of the very essence of military strength, are among the 
 
 instruments of war, and the means of defense — as clearly as 
 16 "^ 
 
240 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 ships, or troops, or armor. Sir, there is an other party in 
 this House who are opposed to this bill: surely it can not be 
 upon any constitutional scruple as to the power to distribute 
 revenue among the States, no matter whence derived. In 
 1830, General Jackson avowed himself in favor of internal 
 improvement by the State authorities. He vetoed an appro- 
 priation made directly by Congress to a State work; but 
 recommended, nay urged, the distribution of the whole sur- 
 plus, customs and all, after the payment of the national debt, 
 among the States for the purpose of internal improvement. 
 He anticipated a large annual surplus for many years, and 
 devoted it all to this greatest of all objects. 
 
 But, "tempora mutantur et nos mutamur cum illis." We 
 find these same parties now not only denying all power to the 
 General Government over the subject directly, but resisting 
 any form of national policy which may aid or encourage in- 
 cidentally those States to whose rights they are so much 
 devoted in the prosecution of their own works by their own 
 authority. Sir, I mean not now and here to contend for the 
 power of internal improvement by the General Government. 
 But I do mean to contend that there is a difference in reason 
 and in fact between the direct power over internal improve- 
 ment by that Government, and the application of funds to the 
 subject by the State authorities, noth withstanding those funds 
 may have been drawn from the national Treasury. I do mean 
 to contend that this Government is bound so to shape its own 
 financial policy as to interfere as little as possible with the 
 resources of the States. Nay, more, in such manner as to 
 strengthen and aid those resources, so far as may be. I say, 
 that it is essential to the independence and the advance of 
 these States to wealth, power, and population, that the power 
 over internal improvements, as a political right, should exist 
 some where. Without revenue the power is nugatory. The 
 policy to which the argument I have been endeavoring to 
 answer would seem to point, is practically a denial of it, both 
 to the State and the General Government. It is to lay this 
 (Country, her industry, and her institutions, prostrate at the 
 
THE LAND BILL. 241 
 
 foot of foreign nations. The genius of this age is utilitarian, 
 mechanical. The tendency of its philosophy is to extend the 
 power of man over nature, physical nature, to multiply the 
 sources of human enjoyment, the objects of human industry, 
 and the means of human subsistence. The jealousy which 
 denies to the Government such an exertion of its powers, and 
 such a direction of its means, as will effect objects to which 
 individual strength and capital are altogether inadequate, 
 dooms the people to embarrassment and weakness. The rea- 
 soning which dismembers revenue from political duty, which 
 confers the great and welling fountains of the one exclusively 
 upon the national, yet imposes the most expensive and burden- 
 some portions of the other upon the State governments, which 
 gives the sovereign and exclusive control over war and com- 
 merce, foreign and domestic, to the one, yet compels the other 
 to furnish, unaided, the highways of trade and transportation, 
 military as well as commercial, may be friendly to State 
 rights, but is exceedingly unfavorable to State powers and 
 interests. General Jackson conceded the principle, so far as 
 the right to distribute revenue among the States is concerned, 
 to an extent far beyond what is claimed by this bill or its 
 advocates. He denied to the national Government the power 
 to direct and control the internal improvements within the 
 territory of the particular States; but was willing that it 
 should be the collecting agent for the States, leaving to them 
 the right of expending and applying treasure which they are 
 constitutionally incompetent to raise. I have said, sir, that I 
 did not go this length, nor is it necessary that I should. 
 
 Fortune, a most propitious and singular fortune, has placed 
 at the disposal of this Government a fund, an enormous fund, 
 independent of taxation, to which we have shown the States 
 have something very like to strict title. Eight hundred 
 millions of acres of land, at one dollar and one quarter per 
 acre, one thousand millions of dollars — think of that, sir ! — to 
 be applied gradually and upon a principle of strict federal 
 equality to the extinction of State debts, to the extension of 
 State improvements, to the support of State credit ! Oh ! who 
 
242 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 can say, sir, that this measure is hostile to the rights of the 
 States as separate communities? And this fund, too, confer- 
 ring ten times its own value upon the individuals from whom 
 it is drawn, and opening up new perennial and unfathomable 
 fountains of revenue to the Government which distributes it ! 
 Who shall say that it is injurious to the power or the interests 
 of the people as a nation, or to their national Treasury? 
 This picture is not overdrawn — not in the least. It is the 
 advantage, the peculiar advantage, of peopling and bringing 
 new and fertile land into cultivation. Raise money in any 
 other way, or from any other source, and it is taxation. Sell 
 any thing else, the product of human art or labor below its 
 value, and you are either robbed by the vendee, or you rob 
 those from whom you derive it. But land, vacant, unsettled, 
 unpeopled, fertile, uncultivated land, is the creation and the 
 gift of God. When you sell it for the one-tenth of its value, 
 you have enriched yourselves to that extent from the muni- 
 ficence of Heaven ; and he who purchases has made one thou- 
 sand per cent, upon his investment. You enlarge the national 
 capital a thousandfold by the very act of filling the national 
 Treasury ; and, at the same time, and by the same operation, 
 extend incalculably the sources of future revenue. But, sir, 
 although all this is true, strictly and philosophically true, and 
 the individual is enriched, American population increased, the 
 national capital enlarged, and the national Treasury filled by 
 this progress of emigration and settlement, still the money 
 thus profitably invested is withdrawn from the productive in- 
 dustry of the States whence it was taken, and the power of 
 that industry is, for the time, and to that extent, diminished. 
 How beautiful the operation of this bill, which restores and 
 renovates the fountains whence these streams were drawn, 
 enabling them to flow on, and on, and on, without exhaustion, 
 till the whole grand reservoir of the West be full of people 
 and of capital — the perennial sources remaining fresh, and 
 full, and vigorous as before ! And it restores, in a form at 
 once the most just, the most beneficent, the most useful. It 
 was gone from the State entirely and for ever^ It is taken by 
 
THE LAND BILL. 243 
 
 the General Government, as I have shown, -without tax or 
 oppression. It is given back in masses to the State treasuries 
 to be expended, not unproductively, but in the creation of 
 new instruments and vehicles of commerce and pr6duction ; 
 the people receiving again the money, the State receiving an 
 equal value in works which are to be the permanent sources 
 of revenue to the public, by conferring permanent and enrich- 
 ing facilities upon the industry of the people, at once prevent- 
 ing the drain of capital by emigration, and replenishing the 
 State treasuries without taxation. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wise] 
 lias told us that the effect of this bill upon the States will be 
 similar to an effort to reform a spendthrift by filling his 
 pockets with money. Sir, is it just to the States, is it quite 
 consistent in those who claim to be the champions of their 
 rights, their sovereignty, and the guardians of their honor, 
 thus to stigmatize their character and their credit? Is it 
 quite fair in a government, or any member of it, which, hold- 
 ing the imperial sources of revenue in exclusive property, 
 and in possession but a few years ago of a vast surplus, repu- 
 diating all authority to advance the arts of peace, all power 
 to extend domestic commerce, and to conquer the vast dis- 
 tances of its territory by quickening communication and inter- 
 course — is it quite fair, after shuffling off these sovereign 
 powers upon the States, and seducing them into their exertion 
 by promises of aid and countenance, to brand as profligate 
 and prodigal the generous efforts they have made to improve 
 the face of their country, to bring themselves nearer to each 
 other, to increase the objects of the industry, and enlarge and 
 extend the markets for the productions of their people? No, 
 sir, the internal improvement debt of the States finds no type 
 in the wanton expenditure of the profligate. Theirs is rather 
 the wise and far-sighted policy of the husbandman, who sows 
 all his seed broadcast upon his fields, and even stints himself 
 for the present rather than his lands should lie idle, awaiting 
 with philosophic patience the rich and sure reward of the 
 coming harvest. 
 
244 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 But, sir, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wise] found 
 much to blame in the details as well as the principle of the 
 bill. He considers the ten per cent, on the net profits of the 
 lands situated within their territorial limits, which the bill 
 gives to the nine States enumerated in the first section, over 
 and above their federal proportion, as unjust and unequal — a 
 mere bribe to those States. The principle which governs this 
 provision seems clear and unexceptionable. In the first place, 
 the land upon which this per centum is given is within the 
 territorial limits and jurisdiction of the States to which it is 
 given, and is, by the existing law, exempt for five years from 
 taxation. In the second place, the States so enumerated are 
 found to increase in population in a ratio of about ten per 
 centum faster than the older States of the Union. So that 
 the provision of this section is necessary to compensate the 
 State for the loss of revenue occasioned by the exemption of 
 the public lands from taxation for five years after the settle- 
 ment, and to preserve the general principle of the bill, by 
 apportioning the distribution, as nearly as possible, to the in- 
 creasing ratio of population. 
 
 The section which fixes the maximum price which the Gov- 
 ernment shall demand during the existence of the laws at the 
 present minimum of $1 25 per acre, has met with the severest 
 denunciation. The wisdom and propriety of this provision 
 seem to be equally manifest with the policy and justice of the 
 preceding. The great national object is to promote, as fast 
 as possible, the settlement, real and bona fide, of the public 
 domain, and so to keep down the price as to place comfort- 
 able farms within the reach of the poorer class of emigrants. 
 Under the distribution law, the necessities of some of the 
 older States, or the jealousy of those who imagine that emi- 
 gration drains their population, and ascribe their own decline, 
 or at least inertness and stagnation, to the rise of the western 
 States, might induce them to raise the price of lands so as to 
 check the advance of that population which the General Gov- 
 ernment is most interested in extending. The one would kill 
 the goose that lays the golden egg to get at the treasure; 
 
THE LAND BILL. 245 
 
 the other would stop the national growth, in the vain hope of 
 increasing thereby their own particular importance. Against 
 either result, or either motive, the provision is aimed, and 
 wisely aimed, as it seems to me. 
 
 And here, Mr. Chairman, I beg leave to differ not only 
 from the gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Wise,] but from my 
 associate in this argument, the gentleman from North Caro- 
 lina, [Mr. Rayner.] I can not ascribe the want of progress, 
 or at least the very slow advance of population and resources, 
 in the Carolinas and Virginia to the settlement and growth 
 of the western country. When was emigration ever known 
 to diminish population at home, all things else being right 
 there? Did emigration to America diminish the population 
 of Great Britain ? Has the population of New England di- 
 minished under the settlement and most wonderful advance of 
 Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana ? Has New York or Pennsylvania 
 declined under the growth of the West? So far from it, the 
 settlement of the western lands and the creation of the west- 
 ern communities have been the great source of the rapid 
 advance and wonderful improvement of the States whence 
 they have principally drawn their people. The power of in- 
 crease in the human species is unlimited, save by the means 
 of subsistence ; the amount of which depends upon the amount 
 and character of the industry employed, and the remuneration 
 it receives. Population and labor move pari passu. The 
 growth of the new States has furnished the demand for the 
 products of the commerce and manufactures of the old, and the 
 cultivation of the fertile lands of the West has afforded abund- 
 ant means of exchange and payment. States which have 
 neither commerce nor manufactures, and whose agriculture is 
 carried on by those who have neither a property in the soil 
 nor interest in its production, if they find themselves sinking 
 into- poverty and weakness, must look for the cause elsewhere 
 than in the prosperity of communities differently situated. 
 But this is dangerous ground, and I quit it. 
 
 Finally, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Wise] conceives 
 this bill to convert the public lands into a fund of universal 
 
246 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 corruption : States, old and new, corporations and individuals, 
 rich and poor, governments and people, all bid for and bought. 
 In the power to resume the fund in case of war, when the 
 necessities of the national Treasury and the interruption of 
 our commerce may render it essential to the public defense, 
 he detects a bribe to peace. The national honor is endan- 
 gered ; the States of this Union are tempted to bear with 
 national wrongs and indignities ; to prostrate their right-s and 
 their independence at the footstool of European monarchs ; 
 lest, in case of war, they should lose their annual share in the 
 distribution of the proceeds of the public lands. It seems 
 then, sir, that the great objection to the bill is the universal 
 benefit it confers. Every class of persons, natural and politi- 
 cal, find their advantage in it. Could a prouder commenda- 
 tion be passed upon any measure? Could human wisdom 
 have produced aught more perfect in legislation than a law 
 which promotes every interest, and rains down blessings upon 
 every class ; which reconciles jealousies and hostilities one 
 with another, and binds a whole people by the strong cords 
 of a common interest to their common country ? It was a 
 great and a just compliment which the gentleman paid to the 
 bill. It does, indeed, contain bonuses in abundance. Blest 
 bribery ! which enriches the new States without impoverish- 
 ing the old ; which strengthens State revenue without increas- 
 ing State taxation ; which lifts the poor into opulence without 
 plundering the rich ; which renders the local governments 
 strong and independent, without affecting the power or the re- 
 sources of the national; which removes every cause of jealousy 
 or uneasiness between them, by leaving the States in the un- 
 interrupted power of locating and directing the improvement 
 of their own territory, furnishing ample means, and deriving 
 national strength, resource, and safety from their expenditure. 
 Whence, Mr. Chairman, springs this jealousy of the Federal 
 Government, and whither does it tend ? One would imagine 
 that it was created but to be feared and watched. It is 
 treated as something naturally and necessarily hostile and 
 dangerous to the States and the people. The powers with 
 
THE LAND BILL. 247 
 
 which it is armed are considered but as so many instruments 
 of destruction. It is represented as a great central mass 
 charged with poison and death, attracting every thing within 
 its sphere, andpolluting or destroying every thing which it 
 attracts. It is represented as something foreign and inimical, 
 whose constant and necessary policy it is to boW the sove- 
 reign crests of these States at the footstool of its own power 
 by force, or to conquer and debase them into stipendiaries 
 and vassals by bribes and corruption. Sir, while I listened to 
 the impassioned invective of the gentleman from Virginia, I 
 felt my mind inflaming against this mortal and monstrous foe, 
 meditating such foul designs against public virtue and public 
 liberty. 
 
 But the question recurred, what is this Government, and 
 who are we? Is Kentucky to be bought and sold, that she 
 may be corrupted and enslaved? Are New York, Pennsyl- 
 vania, Virginia — all, all — to be brought under the hammer and 
 struck off — honor, independence, freedom — all at a stroke? 
 And who the auctioneer ? who the purchaser ? Their own 
 representatives, freely chosen and entirely responsible ? Nay, 
 sir, they are doubly represented in this Government so bent 
 upon their destruction. We come fresh from the hands of the 
 people themselves, soon to return and account for our con- 
 duct. Those in the other end of the Capitol represent the 
 States as sovereigns. Strange violation of all natural order, 
 that we should plot the ruin of those whose breath is our life,^ 
 whose independence and safety is our glory. Whither does 
 this jealousy tend? Are the States only safe in alienation 
 from and enmity to their common head? Are we most to 
 dread the national authority when exerted most beneficently 
 upon State interests? Sir, what can this mean, and to what 
 does it tend, save dismemberment ? Why continue a n-overn- 
 ment whose only power is for mischief; which to be innocent 
 must be inert; and which, where most it seems to favor and 
 to bless, means the more insidiously, but the more surely, to 
 corrupt and to destroy? I can understand why a consolida- 
 tionist, if there be such a foe to reason and to liberty, or an 
 
248 T, F. MARSHALL. 
 
 early federalist, feeling an overwrought jealousy of the State 
 sovereignties, and dreading the uniform tendency of confede- 
 rated republics to dismemberment and separation, should feel 
 unwilling to part with the power of internal improvement, and 
 grant the revenue necessary to its exertion along with the 
 power. I can understand why such an one, stretching his 
 vision forward to that period when a sum approximating to 
 the national debt of England shall have been expended by 
 State authority, and the State governments surrounded with 
 corporations of their own creation, and invested in perpetuity 
 with the vast revenues in future to be derived from this vast 
 and most profitable expenditure, shall swell into populous, opu- 
 lent, and potent nations, the people looking up to them as the 
 source whence the facilities of commerce have been derived ; I 
 can understand that such an one might apprehend that, under 
 these circumstances, the more distant orb, the central sun, 
 would grow dim, and lose its just proportions to the planets 
 which were destined to wheel around it. But how a States- 
 rights man, one whose jealousies are all in the other direction, 
 who dreads, from the centripetal tendency, the absorption of 
 the smaller bodies, and the consolidation of the system — how 
 such an one can see aught in this bill to threaten the power 
 and independence of the States, passes my understanding. For 
 my part I see no danger on either hand. I see power, inde- 
 pendence, and ample revenues for the States; but, as they 
 swell, the nation which they compose can not dwindle. The 
 resources of the national Treasury expand in exact proportion 
 to the expansion of the population, the wealth, the com- 
 merce, and consumption of the States. Indeed, sir, as a mere 
 measure of national finance, as a far-sighted mean of deepen- 
 ing the sources, the exclusive and peculiar sources, into which 
 the States are forbidden to dip, and whence they as Govern- 
 ments can not drink, I should vote for the measure. Imagine 
 the vast wilderness tamed into cultivation, eight hundred mil- 
 lions of acres of fertile land, teeming with people, studded 
 with cities, and intersected and connected by highways and 
 canals ; compute the consumption if you can ; imagine the 
 
THE LAND BILL. 249 
 
 revenue to be derived from it; concede, what is manifest, 
 that, as the revenue increases, the burdens on commerce will 
 diminish: and tell me — no sir, you will not tell me — that the 
 effect of this bill is to weaken the national powers or to 
 oppress the people. 
 
 But, sir, the provisions for resuming his fund in time of 
 war is a bribe to peace. Surely, sir, no one desires to con- 
 vert this into a military republic, to infuse into the States or 
 the people a thirst for wars of ambition and of conquest. The 
 meaning of the objection must be, that the pecuniary conside- 
 ration in the bill — the distributive share of the States being 
 limited to the time of peace — will emasculate the spirit of the 
 States, will tempt them to bear with wrongs and indignities, 
 to shrink from just and necessary wars, wars of defense — will, 
 in a word, make slaves and cowards of us all. In this sense, 
 this odious sense, is the bill considered as a bribe to peace. 
 Mr. Chairman, I have shown, I think, that the necessary effect 
 and avowed object of this bill is to increase the strength, 
 enlarge the resources, establish the credit, and relieve the 
 finances of the States, at the same time that it multiplies the 
 means and instruments of military operations, and extends the 
 sources of national revenue. It is a new philosophy which 
 teaches that in proportion as you enlarge the objects for 
 which men are most apt to fight, and improve the force with 
 which they are to be defended, you destroy the courage which 
 makes that force efHcient. Peace, sir, is emphatically the 
 policy of this country; peace is the true policy of the world; 
 a policy into which religion and the most enlarged philosophy 
 may yet indoctrinate mankind. 
 
 " Oh ! monarohs, did ye taste the peace ye mar, 
 The hoarse dull drum would sleep, and man be happy yet." 
 
 In one sense industry and commerce are bribes to peace. 
 The peculiar industry of the South is emphatically a bribe to 
 peace. War, which would interrupt, if not destroy, our for- 
 eign commerce, and cut off the planting interest from their 
 best customers, their most profitable markets — war would fall 
 
250 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 ■with aggravated hardships upon the agriculture of the South. 
 Shall we inhibit the growth of cotton ? Shall we break up all 
 industry which has foreign consumption for its object? Shall 
 we sunder the chain which binds the civilized nations of the 
 world into one great commercial republic? Shall we undo all 
 that art, science, reason, and religion, have achieved to change 
 the direction of human genius, to soften and beautify the face 
 of modern society? Shall we teach nations again to look to 
 war, spoils, and conquest, for the means of subsistence, and 
 the only true foundations of glory and of empire ? 
 
 The gentleman from Virginia, in the prosecution of this 
 objection, warns New York and Maine against the consequences 
 of the bill. He exhorts New York, in an especial manner, to 
 stand by her rights ; to maintain inviolate her territory by 
 her own authority. Try McLeod by your own laws and 
 courts, and if you find him guilty hang him, said the gentle- 
 man, [Mr. Wise,] hang him upon the border, hang him high 
 and within full view of the Canadian fortresses, that his 
 dangling corse may flout the British cannon. Sir, I under- 
 stood the gentleman [Mr. Wise] the other day to approve the 
 ground taken by the American Secretary [Mr. Webster] in 
 that most dignified correspondence which he held with the 
 British minister in relation to the case of McLeod. I under- 
 stood that ground to be, that the course of the British Govern- 
 ment on this subject had rendered it a national question. The 
 jurisdiction of such belongs exclusively to the national Govern- 
 ment. If wrong has been done. New York has surer remedy 
 in the united force and constitutional guarantee of twenty-six 
 States than she could find in her own arm, potent as it is. 
 The soil of New York is the soil of the United States; the 
 citizens of New York are citizens of the United States; the 
 right and the power, constitutional and physical, has been 
 surrendered to this Government to settle all questions touch- 
 ing the safety of either, in their collision with other coun- 
 tries, whether by negotiation or the sterner arbitrament of the 
 Bword. Surely the State of New York feels no difiBdence in 
 that Government of which she forms so important a part. 
 
THE LAND BILL. 251 
 
 Surely she means not to answer the gentleman's appeal, and, 
 throwing off the national authority, to draw questions of peace 
 and war from the American Government to her own State 
 courts. She means not to treat or war with England or any 
 other country upon her own separate account. The duty to 
 carry on war is surely in reason, as it is undoubtedly, in our 
 fundamental law, intimately and inseparably connected with 
 the power to declare it, and to decide all questions with for- 
 eign countries which may involve such a result. That the 
 rights and the honor of New York are secure from violation 
 or insult in the hands where the constitution has placed them, 
 I should deem it akin to treason to doubt. Her rights, her 
 honor, her territory, are the rights, the honor, the territory 
 of the United States. She is part of my country. She is 
 covered by the imperial flag, overshadowed every inch of her 
 by the wings of the imperial eagle, protected by his beak and 
 talons. For these sentiments I may be permitted to answer 
 here for at least one State in the Union. Kentucky is placed 
 securely in the center. So long as this Government lasts, her 
 soil is virgin and safe from the impress of a hostile foot. Her 
 fields, thanks to the wisdom of our ancestors, the goodness of 
 God, and the guardian power of this imperial Republic — her 
 fields can never be wasted by ravage, her hearths can never 
 taste of military violation. She knows full well the source of 
 her security, the shield of her liberties. 
 
 The exterior States are the bulwarks of her safety — the im- 
 pregnable fortresses which break the storm of war, and keep 
 far distant from her borders its ravage and its horrors. She 
 views them as such, and regards their rights, their safety, and 
 their liberty as her own. She is one of a system of nerves 
 which Tibrate at the least touch from without from the re- 
 motest extremity to the center. The frontier of New York is 
 her frontier; the Atlantic seaboard is her seaboard; and the 
 millions expended in fortifying the one or the other, she 
 regards as expended for her defense. A blow aimed at New- 
 York is a blow aimed at herself; an indignity or an outrage 
 inflicted upon any State in this Union,, is inflicted upon the 
 
252 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 whole and upon each. To submit to such Tvere to sacrifice 
 her independence and her freedom — to make all other bles- 
 sings valueless, all other property insecure. Not all the un- 
 settled domain of the Union, in full property and jurisdiction, 
 could bribe her to such a sacrifice. The blood she has shed 
 on the snows of Canada and in the swamps of Louisiana, give 
 ample testimony to her readiness to meet danger at a dis- 
 tance. She seeks no separate destiny; she feels no interest 
 alien from the common country. She wants this money to 
 strengthen herself, and, by strengthening herself, to make the 
 whole country stronger and better able to maintain any future 
 conilict in which its interests or its safety may involve it. 
 
 Sir, by the operation of that generous rule, for which I my- 
 self voted, the time for discussion is about to expire. No 
 other western member has spoken, and now no other will have 
 an opportunity to speak, on this subject. With their leave, 
 and to this purpose, I will play the representative for the 
 whole West. Believe me, sir, that when ever the national 
 honor, the national safety, or the honor or safety of any 
 State in this Union, which is the same thing, is menaced or 
 trampled, the States from beyond the mountains whence I 
 come will rush to the rescue. It is not, sir, in the power of 
 three nor three hundred millions per annum to bribe from 
 them what, in their judgment, in the judgment of all but 
 slaves, is priceless. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, a few words in relation to myself personally, 
 and I am done. The gentleman from Virginia, [Mr. Wise,] 
 in the course of his argument yesterday, alluded to the dis- 
 crepancies between this bill and the recommendations of the 
 President, in his communieaticm to the Houses at the opening 
 of the session. The gentleman explained himself fully and 
 satisfactorily, as not intending to press the Executive opinions 
 with a view to influence the action of this House. I refer to 
 the passage with the view of explaining myself in relation to 
 some matters which passed some weeks ago on this floor, and 
 to which I have not since had an opportunity of referring. 
 Permit me to say now, sir, that my own warm support of this 
 
THE LAND BILL. 253 
 
 bill derives no additional motive from the fact of its differing 
 from the recommendation of the President of the United 
 States. Mr. Chairman, the letter writers and several of the 
 public prints have represented me as assailing the President 
 in advance. I have been made to say that my constituents 
 would not have voted for him as President. The gentleman 
 from Virginia, [Mr. Wise,] thought it necessary, by a note to 
 the Intelligencer, to correct some inaccuracies in the report 
 of what he said, in which' he was kind enough to indicate that 
 I also had been misreported. I would have been glad when 
 the gentleman was rectifying in part what I said, if he had 
 put me in my true attitude in relation to this matter. I do 
 not of course complain of him ; I have no right to do so. But 
 the gentleman surely recollects what I did say. 
 
 Here Mr. Wise rose to explain, and said that the gentle- 
 man from Kentucky had said that " his constituents had not 
 voted for Mr. Tyler as President — they had voted for Old 
 Tip, as sure as you are born;" but that he had inferred more 
 from the gentleman's manner than his words. 
 
 Mr. Marshall resumed: That is precisely what I did say, 
 and the gentleman's memory is perfectly accurate. He has 
 the right to draw what inferences he pleases, and I have the 
 right to make what explanations I please. I stated on that 
 occasion that Mr. Tyler had not been elected President of the 
 United States; that he had not called this extraordinary 
 session- — a circumstance which he notices with some particu- 
 larity in his message, and intimates pretty strongly that he 
 would not have done so had the matter rested with him, and 
 of course I argued that the reponsibility of its failure would 
 not rest with him. I came not here as the enemy of Mr. 
 Tyler ; I voted for him as Vice President of the United 
 States, and supported him warmly throughout the canvass. I 
 came here hoping to find him cooperating cordially with the 
 legislative branch in carrying out the wishes and the prin- 
 ciples of that great and now victorious party, to whose cause 
 I have deVoted myself from my earliest youth. I came here 
 
254 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 prepared to support his administration, as a whig administra- 
 tion, and shall continue to do so till developments hostile to 
 the principles I 'serve are made, and not a moment longer; 
 developments which I trust, for the sake of my country, and 
 what I believe to be her cause, may not be made. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I have been described as setting myself up 
 as the exponent of the opinions, of the personal views, of a 
 great man in the other end of the Capitol. I have not been, 
 and can not be, guilty of such impertinence. Coming from 
 his district, and holding the relations political which I do to 
 him, a most unworthy and insidious effort has been made to 
 wound him through me, and to hold him responsible to the 
 public for what I may say or do here. Sir, it is a rich idea 
 that the great Senator from Kentucky should require an ex- 
 ponent, and he in the Capitol. He needs no interpreter of 
 his opinions, no exponent of his designs or his course. And, 
 if he did, he knows me far too well to select me for the office. 
 When he wishes to be understood, he will explain himself. 
 While he wishes to remain at peace, nor I nor all of us can 
 disturb his repose; and should he desire war, he will, rest 
 assured he will, be his own herald, and will wage it after his 
 own taste and fashion. I am the exponent here of the known 
 will of my constituents. I came to present their wishes, 
 and to speak in their stead at this bar. To none else am I 
 responsible; for none else do I act. I came here, sir, with 
 no dream of raising, or of finding, or of leading, a third party. 
 I had rather follow than lead — it is easier and safer. I have 
 no earthly desire " to raise a whirlwind that I may ride it." 
 I came to follow in the plain, well-known, and beaten path 
 of whig politics. I shall pursue it, depart from it who may. 
 Nay, should all desert it, I will trudge it alone. I want no 
 new lights — I can not learn under new teachers, nor will I 
 receive new doctrines from the old. 
 
ON TEMPEEAKCE. 255 
 
 ADDRESS, 
 
 Delivered m the Hall of the House of Representatives, before the Congressional 
 Total Abstinence Society, there assembled. 
 
 Dr. Sewall, of Washington, having concluded an able and eloquent lecture, 
 accompanied by plates illustrating the different degrees of wretchedness 
 and disease to which the stomach of the drunkard is reduced, Mr. Mae- 
 shall rose and addressed the auditory as follows : 
 
 The world at large is under great and lasting obligations 
 to the gentleman who has favored us with the able lecture to 
 which we have just listened, for the inquiries he has instituted 
 into the pathology of drunkenness. He has published one of 
 the most interesting and scientific essays on that subject which 
 it has ever been my fortune to examine. It is accompanied 
 and illustrated by some splendidly executed drawings, similar 
 to those exhibited to-night, portraying the various changes of 
 the lining, or Coats of the human stomach, from a state of per- 
 fect health to the last stage of gangrenous inflammation, pro- 
 duced by intemperance — imparting to the force of scientific 
 reasoning the startling certainty of sensible representation. 
 The style of the essay, as of the lecture, is admirable indeed. 
 The doctor confines himself entirely to physical eflFects. There 
 is not the least affectation of rhetorical display, not the slight- 
 est perceptible straining after stage effect, not the smallest in- 
 fusion of personal or professional vanity, and not the faintest 
 tinge of fanatical enthusiasm, in the matter or manner of his 
 writing or discourse. The whole is simple and unadorned as 
 truth itself. His demonstrations of his subject are as lucid, as 
 conclusive, and as unpretending, as those of Sir Isaac New- 
 ton in mathematics: To call Dr. Sewall a man of genius, ac- 
 cording to the modern acceptation of that much-abused term, 
 were to insult his merit and lower his understanding. To de- 
 
256 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 signate him an orator, would be to sink science from the stars 
 to the stump — to throw the tawdry drapery of an actress over 
 the Florentine Yenus — to clothe the cold, clear, naked, yet 
 modest, symmetry of truth, in the glaring gewgaws of a har- 
 lot. He is, then, neither a genius nor an orator, but a learned 
 physician, a profound, patient, and modest inquirer into the 
 economy of nature, as exhibited in the animal structure of 
 man, armed with the love of truth, to guide him in his re- 
 searches, and stimulated by a regard for his kind to commu- 
 nicate their results, in language exactly fitted to be the vehicle 
 of scientific ideas, untainted by the cant of religion or the dog- 
 matism of ethics, though he be both Christian and moralist. 
 The Doctor must excuse me if I love to praise a man who 
 never, even in manner, vaunts of himself. He has succeeded 
 in satisfying me that the conclusion at which he has arrived 
 is certain and irrefutable. He has demonstrated that alcohol 
 is a substance which no organ, with which nature has furnished 
 the human system, is of power sufficient to appropriate as ali- 
 ment to the body. It undergoes no change from the action 
 of the gastric juice, the great solvent provided by nature to 
 convert our food into nourishment for our frames. It goes 
 into the system alcohol; it circulates through the system alco- 
 hol, irritating, inflaming, and finally gangrening all the deli- 
 cate surfaces with which it comes into contact, from the coats 
 of the stomach, to the membrane of the brain, till it is ejected 
 with the breath through the pores of the skin, and with all 
 the secretions — still alcohol unchanged, and retaining its origi- 
 nal properties. Its effect is always to injure, even in the 
 smallest quantity; to that extent it is injurious. Its excessive 
 use necessarily and inevitably changes the appearance and 
 prostrates the powers, not only of the stomach, but of every 
 part and organ of the human body. As opposed to food, it 
 is a poison — a poison not found in an original and separate 
 state any where in nature. Diifused throughout the greater 
 part of the vegetable kingdom, in another form, and with other 
 qualities, it has been extracted, and changed into a poisonous 
 agent, by chemical process and the ingenuity of man. Unlike 
 
ON TEMPEEANCE. 257 
 
 food, it does njt satisfy, but stimulates the appetite for itself, 
 and leads, from this peculiar property, necessarily to excess. 
 Although the melancholy observation and experience of every 
 day, satisfy and confirm the experiments and inductions of 
 pure science, still this poison is the subject of most extensive 
 and everyday consumption among- men, working all the fear- 
 ful ruin of mind and health which has this night been so im- 
 pressively painted to our view. 
 
 Our aim is to banish the use of it as a drink from society 
 altogether. We declare, in our Society, openly, that we will 
 not take into our systems a substance which the God of nature 
 has rendered the human stomach unfit to receive, and inca- 
 pable of digesting — a substance which has all the properties 
 of a poison, the eflFect of which is not only to derange the 
 animal economy, and to destroy life, like other poisons, but 
 to work a still more melancholy ruin in the moral constitu- 
 tion of man. Yet, for my share, for the very small and ob- 
 scure part I bear in this great moral effort, I have seen 
 myself, within these few days, taunted in a public print as a 
 fanatic in the cause of temperance ! A cold-water fanatic 
 strikes upon my ear as something strange and paradoxical. 
 Be it so, however. Be this or any other title applied to me, 
 so cold water and temperande go along with it. The object 
 and the character of our Society have neither kinship nor 
 alliance with fanaticism, political or religious. Ours is the 
 cause of morals, public and private, irrespective of rank, sect, 
 or party; it is the cause of peace, of happiness, of virtue. 
 Let me here, sir, put a case for the consideration of our 
 colleagues in Congress. Let me suppose for a moment that 
 the condition of the world were changed; that alcohol was 
 but now discovered; that it had not yet commenced that 
 career of ravage which has marked its course and progress. 
 Let me further suppose that the Congress of the United 
 States — the representation Of the people of this great em- 
 pire, the sober likeness of a sober nation, in the case im- 
 agined — were just now apprized of the discovery; that some 
 great teacher, who had penetrated the qualities and effects 
 
258 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 of this substance, and its future possible bearing upon the 
 fortunes of the human race, should here this night present, 
 for the first time, before the mental vision, in long and ap- 
 palling perspective, all the consequences upon this people 
 which have in fact followed its use ; that he should fully sat- 
 isfy every man in this assembly that, poisonous as it is, and 
 ruinous as its effects must be, this hitherto unknown evil was 
 approaching our shores ; that the only antidote was abstinence 
 from the first contact ; and that, if we once ventured to taste, 
 nothing could arrest its progress, until it had wrought that 
 entire mass of wretchedness, which he had, in living colors, 
 pictured to our view. And then let us suppose that the prop- 
 osition were made to Congress, not as a cure, but as a meas- 
 ure of prevention — as anticipating the commencement of an 
 illimitable evil — as seeking to guard and preserve our country- 
 men in that glorious and happy state in which they would be 
 were intoxicating drinks unknown — a sober nation — a republi- 
 can empire containing seventeen millions of people, free, sober, 
 healthy, and, so far as this prolific parent of miseries was con- 
 cerned, happy ! — ^all the disease, all the misery, all the long 
 catalogue of crimes which have sprung from drunkenness, ban- 
 ished — no, not banished — unborn, unheard of: — suppose, I say, 
 that, with this object in view, an appeal should be made to 
 these members of Congress to come forward, each in his place, 
 and, as an example to those who had commissioned them — to 
 those whose image it was their duty to reflect — to whom they 
 should be as a mirror — and whose virtue and happiness it 
 should be their pride to guard — a proposition were made to 
 take a solemn public pledge that they never would stain their 
 lips with the polluting contact of a poison which must destroy 
 their countrymen ? I ask, sir, who would pause ? Who would 
 refuse? Who would reject a pledge, the impassable barrier 
 against such an inundation of misery? I would not — I am 
 sure I would not. So far from considering such a pledge as 
 the " surrender of my freedom of action," I should exult in 
 the deed as one by which I had secured my own, and pre- 
 served the liberties of my country. 
 
ON TEMPERANCE. 259 
 
 The friends of the temperance cause, however, are, unhap- 
 pily, not in the condition I have supposed. The demon has 
 not only approached, but has been welcomed to our shores. 
 He has already wrought among us an amount of mischief and 
 misery which I am wholly incompetent to describe. It is our 
 object to arrest and expel what we can not now prevent. We 
 seek to secure, in aid of the most glorious moral and social 
 revolution of which the world has any record — save only that 
 which was effected by the introduction of Christianity — to en- 
 list in this cause the countenance and support, and to throw 
 around it all the dignity and influence which necessarily at- 
 tach to the movements of those connected with the govern- 
 ment. 
 
 We are sometimes told (for our cause, like every thing else 
 that is great and. good, has its difficulties and its enemies) that 
 the pledge proposed subjects necessarily the man who takes it 
 to the implied admission that he is himself laboring under the 
 evil in question, and flies to this as a means of escape from 
 it. This is a grossly unjust view of the matter, and as inju- 
 rious to our cause as it is untrue. It is to the sober we here 
 appeal. We call upon them to rally to the standard of so- 
 briety; we invite the temperate to guard the cause of tempe- 
 rance. Shall shame interpose there? Can the man who 
 loathes the bottle, and shrinks appalled from all the degrada- 
 tion to which the bottle leads, blush to. profess openly the 
 honorable principles which he practices ? You who are tem- 
 perate, how can you withhold your aid from us — the aid sim- 
 ply of your name and countenance ? 
 
 Temperate men refusing to join a temperance society! — 
 withholding their name and influence! — nay, throwing, by 
 their refusal, the weight of both against us ! it is unnatural, 
 it is unintelligible, it is cruel. It is most cruel in those un- 
 tainted by this destroying vice, to cast the whole weight of 
 the cause upon its wretched victims, writhing and struggling 
 with the chain which darkly binds their strength, nor stretch 
 out the arm, free and unparalyzed by its might, to aid in 
 rending its links asunder. ¥ou (Mr. M. here looked stead- 
 
260 T. F. MABSHALL. 
 
 fastly and earnestly at Mr. Wise) — you incur no risk ; you 
 make no sacrifice; you brave no painful notoriety; your lives 
 are as yet unstained; your good name unscathed. Not a 
 shade darkens the fair field of your unsullied escutcheon. 
 There is no room for shame. Nothing but honor to your- 
 selves, and blessings to others, can follow your union with us. 
 Ashamed of pure and perfect temperance ! oh, no ; true dig- 
 nity surrounds her ; the diadem of honor sparkles on her 
 brow ; and the flowing robes of virtue encircle and adorn her 
 elastic and graceful form. Mine, sir, was a different case. 
 Mr. President, we of the " Total Abstinence and Vigilance 
 Society," in our meetings at the other end of the city, are so 
 much in the habit of " telling experiences," that I myself 
 have somewhat fallen into it, and am guilty occasionally of 
 the egotism of making some small confessions, (as small as I 
 can possibly make them.) Mine, then, sir, was a difi'erent 
 case. I had earned a most unenviable notoriety, by excesses 
 which, though bad enough, did not half reach the reputation 
 they won for me. I never was an habitual drunkard. I was 
 one of your spreeing gentry. My sprees, however, began to 
 crowd each other ; and my best friends feared that they would 
 soon run together. Perhaps my long intervals of entire ab- 
 stinence — perhaps something peculiar in my form, constitution, 
 or complexion — may have prevented the physical indications, 
 so usual, of that terrible disease, which, till temperance socie- 
 ties arose, was deemed incurable and resistless. Perhaps I 
 had nourished the vanity to believe that nature had endowed 
 me with a versatility which enabled me to throw down and 
 take up at pleasure any pursuit, and I chose to sport with the 
 gift. If so, I was brought to the very verge of a fearful 
 punishment. Physicians tell us that intemperance at last be- 
 comes, of itself, not a habit voluntarily indulged, but a disease 
 which its victim can not resist. I had not become fully the 
 subject of that fiendish thirst, that horrible yearning after the 
 distillation "from the alembick of hell," which is said to 
 scorch in the throat, and consume the vitals of the confirmed 
 drunkard, with fires kindled for eternity. I did become 
 
ON TEMPERANCE. 261 
 
 alarmed, and for the first time, no matter from what cause, 
 lest the demon's fangs were fastening upon me, and I was 
 approaching that line which separates the man who frolics, 
 and can quit, from the lost inebriate, whose appetite is dis- 
 ease, and whose will is dead, I joined the society on my own 
 account, and felt that I must encounter the title of " reformed 
 drunkard," annoying enough to me, I assure you. I judged, 
 from the cruel publicity given through the press to my frolics, 
 what I had to bear and brave. But I did brave it all ; and I 
 would have dared any thing to break the chain which I at 
 last discovered was riveting on my soul, to unclasp the folds 
 of that serpent-habit whose full embrace is death. Letters 
 from people I never had heard of, newspaper paragraphs from 
 Boston to New Orleans were mailed, and are still mailing to 
 me, by which I am very distinctly, and in the most friendly 
 and agreeable manner, apprized that I enjoyed all over the 
 republic the delectable reputation of a sot, with one foot in 
 the grave, and an understanding almost totally overthrown. I 
 doubt not, sir, that the societies who have invited me to ad- 
 dress them at different places in the Union, will expect to find 
 me with an unhealed carbuncle on my nose, and my body of 
 the graceful and manly shape and proportions of a demijohn. 
 I have dared all these annoyances, all this celebrity. I have 
 not shrunk from being a text for temperance preachers, and 
 a case for the outpouring of the sympathies of people who 
 have more philanthropy than politeness, more temperance than 
 taste. I signed the pledge on my own account, sir, and my 
 heart leaped to find that I was free. The chain has fallen 
 from my freeborn limbs; not a link or fragment remains to 
 tell I ever wore the badge of servitude. Mr. President, the 
 temperate members of Congress are exposed, as I have said, 
 to no shame or annoyance from the act to which we invite 
 them. It is to rescue others that we summon them. To res- 
 cue others — ay, sir, and to place themselves beyond the reach 
 of a danger from which none are exempt. There are men of 
 a stamp which secures them absolutely from every thing which 
 can degrade, save only this one vice. There is no danger 
 
262 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 that a man of lofty mind, a high-spirited, well-educated gen- 
 tleman, will stoop to other vices which sink and degrade 
 humanity. He will not lie ; he can not steal ; he is incapahle 
 of dishonor. Death itself can not drive him to the perpetra- 
 tion of baseness. Poverty, want, starvation may assail him, 
 he is proof against them all. This alone can drag his virtue 
 down ; and against it what genius can guard, what magna- 
 nimity shield us? Who has not seen the most towering, the 
 most majestic, sink vanquished beneath its powers ? Who has 
 not seen genius prostrate, courage disarmed, manhood with- 
 ered, before the march of this fell-destroyer of all that is 
 great, and bright, and beautiful ? ' It seems, indeed, as if, with 
 the cunning malice of tyranny, and the ambitious policy of a 
 conqueror, this grim king selects the loftiest victims, and from 
 those who otherwise are formed to be the ornament and 
 strength of their land and race. Certain it is, that political 
 ambition or elevatioii is of itself no safeguard. I have been 
 told that the last ghastly spectacle exhibited to us to-night — 
 the ruined stomach of a dead inebriate, once the living recep- 
 tacle of God's good and healthful gifts, and so by him in- 
 tended to remain — was part of the frame of a distinguished 
 statesman and member of this House, a man of genius and 
 of eloquence, whose mind led once the councils of his own 
 State, and whose voice has often resounded through this hall 
 while listening thousands hung with rapture upon its accents. 
 Look on that picture and imagine, if you can, the horrors 
 which must have preceded a fate like that. But, sir, this poi- 
 son stops not with physical destruction ; it is over the intel- 
 lectual and moral man that it achieves its greatest triumphs. 
 The erect form, the muscular limb, the taper waist, oh ! how 
 they change under the transforming touch of this monster 
 magician. But it is not the trembling limb, the bloated body, 
 the bleared and dimmed eye, the sluggish ear, the blotched 
 and ulcerated skin, the poisoned breath, the destruction of 
 strength, And cleanliness, and beauty, which most effectually 
 attest the terrible power, and mark the wrecks with which the 
 demon strews his path — ^it is the overthrow of the moral prin- 
 
ON TEMPEBANCE. 263 
 
 ciple, the extinction of conscience, sensibility to what is right 
 and wrong, charity, domestic affection-^all, all that makes us 
 men — the utter dispersion of the moral elements which hold 
 the world together, and the entire implication of the weak 
 and the innocent, the mother, the wife, the infant, in suffering 
 for crimes of which they are the most wretched, yet the 
 guiltless victims. These are the proudest trophies, the most 
 splendid fruits of the victories of the wine cup. Other vices, 
 other crimes, leave the physical, the intellectual, the moral 
 man capable of repentance, of amendment, and of action ; 
 but this destroys him throughout — body, mind and conscience 
 — yet leaves the wretch survivor of himself. 
 
 Would, sir, that some of the thrilling confessions and nar- 
 ratives disclosed in those homely associations of ours, in a 
 distant part of the city, could be heard by this audience as I 
 have heard them — the confessions and narratives of men whom 
 the indefatigable benevolence of the " Vigilance Society of 
 Total Abstinence" has rescued from the very kennel. They 
 are not your stately, refined educated gentlemen who quaff 
 their rich and costly Madeira, old and mild and fragrant and 
 sparkling and redolent of the true flavor of the cork — ^nectar, 
 fit for gods to sip, taken down bottle after bottle, from day to 
 day, till their complexions are purple -as the crushed grapes 
 whose juice they drain — till their trembling hands can scarce 
 conduct, unspilled, the fluid to their lips — till their feet are 
 swollen and agonized with gout, while untold horrors fill the 
 region whose ruin has been to-night laid open to our view — 
 and yet they are no drunkards ! Oh, no, no, no, no. Drunk- 
 ards ! not they ! it is not from such men that we hear in our 
 humble ward meetings. No. They are the once wretched, but 
 now rescued, victims of what, in our western world, is called 
 " white-faced whisky" — children of the lowest intemperance 
 who there appear. This tyrant alcohol, like him of whom it 
 is no unapt representative, can suit its temptations to men of 
 ev€ry grade of fortune, and to every diversity of. human con- 
 dition. He holds out an appropriate lure to every taste, and 
 draws within his fatal snare the high and the low, the learned 
 
264 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 and the unlearned, the vulgar and the refined; it is to the 
 story of the humbler and the poorer who have been reformed 
 by means of that society, with which I was first connected, 
 that I have listened with keenest interest. 
 
 It does appear to me that, if the loftiest among the lofty 
 spirits which move and act from day to day in this hall^the 
 proudest, the most gifted, the most fastidious here — -could hear 
 the tales I have heard, and see the men I have seen, restored, 
 by the influence of a thing so simple as this temperance pledge, 
 from a state of the most abjject outcast wretchedness, to indus- 
 try, health, comfort, and, in their own emphatic language, to 
 "peace," he could not withhold his countenance and support 
 from a cause fraught with such actual blessings to mankind. 
 I have heard unlettered men trace their own history on this 
 subject through all its stages, describe the progress of their 
 ruin and its consequences, paint without the least disguise the 
 utmost extent of degradation and suffering, and the power of 
 appetite, by facts which astonished me — an appetite which 
 triumphed over every human principle, affection and motive, 
 yet yielded instantly and for ever before the simple charm of 
 this temperance pledge. It is a thing of interest to see and 
 to hear a free, bold, strong-armed, hard-fisted mechanic re- 
 late, in his own nervous and natural language, the history of 
 his fall and his recovery; and I have heard him relate how 
 the young man was brought up to labor, and expecting by 
 patient toil to support himself and a rising family, had taken_ 
 to his bosom in his youth the woman whom he loved — how he 
 was tempted to quit her side, and forsake her society for the 
 dram-shop, the frolic, the midnight brawl — how he had re- 
 solved and broken his resolutions, till his business forsook 
 him, his friends deserted him, his furniture seized for debt, 
 his clothing pawned for drink, his wife broken-hearted, his 
 children starving, his home a desert, and Lis heart a hell. 
 And then, in language true to nature, they will exultingly re- 
 count the wonders wrought in their condition by this same 
 pledge: "My friends have come back — I have good clothes 
 on — I am at work again — I am giving food and providing 
 
ON TEMPJIEANCE. 265 
 
 comforts for my children — I am free, I am a man, I am at 
 peace here. My children no longer shrink cowering and hud- 
 dling together in corners, or under the bed, for protection 
 from the face of their own father. When I return at night 
 they bound into my arms and nestle in my bosom. My wife 
 no longer with a throbbing heart and agonized ear counts my 
 steps before she sees me, to discover whether I am drunk or 
 sober — I find her now singing and at work." What a simple 
 but exquisite illustration of a woman's love, anxiety, and suf- 
 fering! The fine instinct of a wife's ear detecting, from the 
 intervals of his footfall before he had yet reached his door, 
 whether it was the drunken or the sober step, whether she 
 was to receive her husband or an infuriated monster in his 
 likeness. I say, sir, these things have an interest, a mighty 
 interest for me; and I deem them not entirely beneath the 
 regard of the proudest statesman here. On my conscience^ 
 sir, I speak the truth when I say that, member of Congress 
 as I am — (and no man is prouder of his commission) — mem- 
 ber of Congress as I am, if, by taking this pledge, it were 
 even probable that it would bring back one human being to 
 happiness and virtue, no matter what his rank or condition, 
 recall the smile of hope, and trust, and love, to the cheek of 
 one wife, as she again pillowed it in safety, peace, and con- 
 fidence upon the ransomed bosom of her reclaimed and nat- 
 ural protector, send one rosy child bounding to the arms of a 
 parent whence drunkenness had exiled it long, I would dare all 
 the ridicule of all the ridiculous people in the world, and thank 
 God that I had not lived in vain. And, sir, I have had that 
 pleasure. 
 
 Mr. President, it is really astonishing what a prodigiously 
 great man a member of Congress is in the estimation of some 
 people. Now, suppose all these members, who are themselves 
 temperate men— and they constitute, thank heaven, an over- 
 whelming majority in both Houses— would, by common con- 
 sent, become members of this Congressional Temperance So- 
 ciety, what sort of influence do you suppose it would have, 
 both within and without these walls ? They would make no 
 
266 T. F, MLAESHALL. 
 
 sacrifice in doing this — ^it costs such men nothing — and if they 
 would only do it, I aver that, before the close of this present 
 session, we should not have a single drinking character left in 
 either branch of the National Legislature. They never could 
 stand out against it — I know they could not. I was myself 
 about as bold, and as open, and as hardy a soul as ever swal- 
 lowed a julep. I did not care who saw me drink ; and though, 
 as I have already admitted, I joined the temperance society 
 because I was scared on my account, and not for the purpose 
 of influencing others, or under the influence of others, yet sure 
 I am, that if all my fellow-members who are temperate had 
 joined this association, (for they constitute a majority far 
 greater than is necessary to suspend the rules of the House 
 or to reverse a Presidential veto,) I should have found myself 
 left in so very small and lean a minority as the drunkard's 
 corps would have amounted to when the line was once drawn 
 between the parties, that I never could have stood the shame. 
 Why, it would be the weakest, meanest, poorest, most con- 
 temptible, powerless little faction that ever did appear in Con- 
 gress. What a figure would half a dozen drunkards cut against 
 the whole body of both Houses ! Why there would not be 
 enough to guard the obsequies — to form a decent funeral pro- 
 cession for King Alcohol — they would be ashamed to attend 
 the remains of their dead master from the capitol. No, sir; 
 they would have to stop drinking in mere self-defense. 
 
 Sir, if there be within this hall an individual man who 
 thinks that his vast dignity and importance would be lowered, 
 the laurels which he has heretofore won be tarnished, his glow- 
 ing and all-conquering popularity at home be lessened, by an 
 act designed to redeem any portion of his colleagues or fellow- 
 men from ruin and shame, all I can say is, that he and I put 
 a very diiferent estimate upon the matter. I should say, sir, 
 that the act was not only the most benevolent, but, in the 
 present state of opinion, the most politic, the most popular, 
 (looking down at Mr. Wise, who sat just under the clerk's 
 stand, Mr. M. added, with a smile,) the very Wisest thing he 
 ever did in his life. Think not, sir, (said Mr. M., still regard- 
 
ON TEMPERANCE. 267 
 
 ing Mr. W. with great earnestness,) think not that I feel my- 
 self in a ridiculous situation, and, like the fox in the fable, 
 wish to divide it with others, by converting deformity into 
 fashion. Not so ; by my honor as a gentleman not so. I was 
 not what I was represented to be. I had, and I have shown 
 that I had full power over myself. Eut the pledge I have 
 taken renders me secure for ever from a fate inevitably fol- 
 lowing habits like pine — a fate more terrible than death. That 
 pledge, though confined to myseK alone, and with reference 
 to its only effect upon me, my mind, my heart, my body, I 
 would not exchange for all earth holds of brightest and of 
 best. No, no, sir ; let the banner of this temperance cause go 
 forward or go backward' — let the world be rescued from its 
 degrading and ruinous bondage to alcohol or not — -I for one 
 shall never, never repent what I have done. I have often 
 said this, and I feel it every moment of my existence, waking 
 or sleeping. Sir, I would not exchange the physical sensa- 
 tions — the mere sense of animal being which belongs to a man 
 who totally refrains from all that can intoxicate his brain or 
 derange his nervous structure — the elasticity with which he 
 bounds from his couch in the morning — the sweet repose it 
 yields him at night — the feeling with which he drinks in, 
 through his clear eyes, the beauty and the grandeur of sur- 
 rounding nature; — I say, sir, I would not exchange my con- 
 scious being as a strictly temperate man — the sense of reno- 
 vated youth — the glad play with which my pulses now beat 
 healthful music — the bounding vivacity with which the life- 
 blood courses its exulting way through every fiber of my 
 frame — the communion high which my healthful ear and eye 
 now hold with all the gorgeous universe of God — the splendors 
 of the morning, the softness of the evening sky — the bloom, 
 the beauty, the verdure of earth, the music of the air and the 
 waters — with all the grand associations of external nature, re- 
 opened to the fine avenues of sense ; — no, sir, though poverty 
 dogged mc'^though scorn pointed its slow finger at me as I 
 passed^though want and destitution, and every element of 
 earthly misery, save only crime, met my waking eye from day 
 
268 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 to day; — not for the brightest and the noblest wreath that 
 ever encircled a statesman's brow — not, if some angel commis- 
 sioned by heaven, or some demon rather, sent fresh from hell, 
 to test the resisting strength of virtuous resolution, should 
 tempt me back, with all the wealth and all the honors which 
 a world can bestow; not for all that time and all that earth 
 can give, would I cast from me this precious pledge of a liber- 
 ated mind, this talisman against temptation, and plunge again 
 into the dangers and the horrors which once beset my path: — 
 so help me heaven, sir, as I would spurn beneath my very feet 
 all the gifts the universe could offer, and live and die as I 
 am, poor, but sober. 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 269 
 
 REPORT OF DEBATE BETWEEN HONS. JOHN J. CRITTENDEN 
 ANDL. W. POWELL, 
 
 Versailles, Kentucky, July 10, 1848. 
 
 The gubernatorial canvass of 1848, in Kentucky, was quite exciting 
 throughout the entire State. Mr. Ckittenden, the Whig, and Mr. Powell, 
 the Democratic candidate, came frequently in contact, and never failed to 
 draw large assemblages together. The pending Presidential election at- 
 tached additional importance to the canvass of these gentlemen, and 
 afforded fruitful source of controversy between them. Early in July they 
 met in debate in the town of Versailles, Kentucky. Mr. Marshall was 
 present, and with acuteness of perception and tenacity of memory unsur- 
 passed, reported substantially the arguments of each for the Press. The 
 Report, though it appeared over the signature of "Senex,'' carried with it 
 the patent of the author's genius, and left no room even for conjecture as 
 to its source. 
 
 The last week has been one of unusual stir and interest in 
 this village. The gubernatorial candidates addressed an im- 
 mense crowd, Monday, in the Courthouse. Mr. Powell's 
 appointment had been made for some time before. Until a 
 few days prior to Monday, Mr. Crittenden had not been ex- 
 pected here. The former gentleman was hitherto an entire 
 stranger in this part of the country, and curiosity was on 
 tiptoe to see and hear the candidate concerning the mode and 
 circumstances of whose nomination so much had been said. 
 In relation to Mr. C, though long and well known, and well 
 beloved in this county, scarcely less curiosity was felt. His 
 course and his conduct in relation to the candidates for the 
 Presidency ; the Taylor convention in February, at Frankfort ; 
 the convention at Philadelphia in June ; his alleged letters to 
 members of the first; Mr. Clay's card; the result of the 
 second, etc., etc., had occasioned a great deal of speculation, 
 and many persons had anticipated from Mr. Crittenden some 
 
270 T. F. MAESHALIi. 
 
 explanation in relation to matters in ■which he had been sup- 
 posed to have borne a leading part, and which had excited 
 such intense interest in Kentu.oky for months. Mr. C, in the 
 course of his remarks, avowed his preference of Mr. Clay, for 
 the Presidency, and alleged availability as the ground of 
 General Taylor's selection by the party. To the other mat- 
 ters referred to, he made no allusion whatever. Of this de- 
 bate, marked as it was with ability, and even more highly 
 distinguished by a kind and graceful courtesy, I will, in the 
 course of this letter, attempt an analysis. In the meantime, 
 I h9,sten with the outline of our week's history. Mammoth 
 bills had been posted up for several days in the taverns, 
 barbershops, etc., appointing Saturday for the arrival and 
 exhibition of a caravan of wild beasts, of all sorts and sizes. 
 Anticipating the menagerie, and the crowd to be attracted by 
 it, gome gentleman of Versailles, with rare tact, selected this 
 as the most appropriate occasion, and the one most likely to 
 secure a numerous audience for the display of ex-secretary 
 Hardin's peculiar qualities. This man was known to be in 
 Frankfprt, was apprised of the expected show and crowd, and 
 invited to take a hand. The temptation of such society was 
 to him irresistible. The proximity of a caravan of his breth- 
 ren aroused sympathetically all his instincts, propensities and 
 appetites. As a suitable finale, and one in admirable keeping 
 with the foregoing part of that day's show, the speech, Satur- 
 day evening, is above all praise, and the community herea- 
 bout — nay, the public at large — can never be suflSciently 
 thankful to the managers who procured them so rich a treat. 
 So you perceive, we have had an uncommon week here, with 
 men and beasts. Zoology has poured forth her stores upon 
 us for the entertainment of the vulvar, and the instruction of 
 the wise. We have seen, from specimens living and before 
 us, in one short week, a mighty chain of animated beings, 
 comprehending, in its vastness of range, the distant extremes 
 of humanity, exhibiting, at one end, how nearly man in rea- 
 son, sentiment, and speech, can approach the gods, and at the 
 other, how shadowy, thin and undefined the boundary which 
 
CHITTENDEN AND POWELL. 271 
 
 separates him from the brutes. As it is my purpose to fling 
 you a sketch of these speeches, particularly of Crittenden and 
 Hardin, and to give a faithful transcript of the impression 
 they made upon an attentive, and, I think, unprejudiced 
 mind, I will begin in the historic order of time with Mr. C, 
 as I saw and heard him, together with the thoughts and asso- 
 ciations, his presence and his words, suggested and awakened. 
 About half-past one o'clock, the bell struck the notice, and 
 the Courthouse, which is a spacious one, was, in a very few 
 moments, crowded to a jam. When I entered, the candidates 
 were already on the stand, and the whole array was imposing 
 even to solemnity. One glance at that crowd of freemen 
 sufficed to prove that Woodford ■ had done her best that day, 
 and the air and the countenance with which the candidates 
 eyed the assembly, showed that they thought, wherever either 
 of them might have spoken before, whether in court or sen- 
 ate, they were upon a theatre, and before an audience not 
 unworthy of the first actors. The population of Woodford is 
 indeed a striking one, and when brought forth upon their pub- 
 lic days, and on any occasion of strong popular interest, has 
 always arrested the attention and remark of strangers. Never 
 did the independent yeomanry (for they are truly such) of 
 this little county, present a more respectable appearance, and 
 never did they wear a countenance of keener intelligence, in- 
 terest and curiosity than on that day. They are, from long 
 experience, competent judges of oratory. Midway between 
 Lexington and Frankfort, a very rich county, and fruitful 
 heretofore in important litigation, Woodford has been, for 
 forty years, the theatre and the arena upon which the best 
 speakers in this or perhaps any other country, have struggled 
 for victory and for fame. It was here that Mr. Clay won 
 much of his early forensic reputation, and is said to have 
 made some of his most brilliant efforts. Mr. Crittenden was 
 born in this county. Its soil is hallowed to his imagination 
 as holding in its bosom the dust of both his parents and seve- 
 ral of his family. Before he went into the Senate of the 
 
 United States, it was his favorite court, and had been for 
 18 
 
272 T. F, MAESHALL. 
 
 years the theatre on which he was wont and delighted to 
 exhibit those beautiful talents, and exert that peculiar and 
 fascinating forensic eloquence of which he is so consummate a 
 master. He stood, after years of absence, (but years of great 
 distinction, upon a theatre far more elevated and august,) he 
 stood at last upon his native soil, in the midst of men, every 
 one of whom was familiar wit)i his countenance, loved his 
 person, reverenced his virtues, and was proud of his talents 
 and fame, being a portion of their own moral wealth, and of 
 the public inheritance. He stood, too, among a people two- 
 thirds of whom are of his own political party, and with the 
 whole of whom (so tested in his honor) the clearest text of 
 scripture is not of more unimpeachable veracity than his 
 smallest assertion. To look upon that beaming and ingenious 
 and manly face, and doubt his word, were indeed difficult even 
 for a stranger. How much more so for men who have known 
 him all his life. 
 
 He commenced the debate, and when he rose, you might 
 have heard a pin drop. Milton speaks of " darkness visible,"' 
 to express intensest want of light. You might, with a similar 
 freedom of speech, have termed that deadly stillness, " silence 
 audible." His mind and his heart seemed to labor under the 
 memory of his own past history, and the personal relations 
 he bore to the men he addressed. He spoke of Woodford as 
 the heart of Kentucky, and of Kentucky as the heart of the 
 Union, and of the ties which bound his own to this " heart of 
 hearts." He alluded to his birthplace and his present posi- 
 tion with graceful propriety, with a taste, a delicacy, a beauty 
 and tenderness of which I think he alone is capable. To re- 
 port him is impossible, and the attempt is always grossly un- 
 just, unless you could use words as colors, and paint along 
 with his expressions the tone, the action, and, above all, the 
 countenance, the eloquent, the indisputable countenance with 
 which they are accompaniied. He said it was unnecessary, 
 and would be impertinent, to give a detailed account here of 
 his own history, political opinions, or public acts; they were 
 all known. There could not be a tribunal on earth, were he 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 273 
 
 under arraignment, more competent to try him from their 
 thorough knowledge of all the facts, and from whom he in 
 particular could invoke or expect a more indulgent or merci- 
 ful judgment. As to hiin, his judges that day were beyond 
 all challenge. " Sixty years ago he said, (he was sorry to 
 acknowledge so long a period of life,) sixty years ago, within 
 two miles of that spot, he had been a child ; a nursling in 
 what was then a cane-brake." Since that time through what 
 vicissitudes he had passed, what changes he had witnessed, 
 what revolutions had swept over the beautiful face of the 
 beautiful country where he was born, lovely in its original 
 wilderness, still lovelier perhaps under the forming hand of 
 taste, art and culture.' He stood at last upon the spot whence 
 he set out, his starting-post and his goal, in the midst of his 
 brethren, " a child of Woodford, and proud of his nativity." 
 He said he was then, under all those circumstances, as a can- 
 didate for the chief executive office of the Commonwealth. 
 They, the men before him, were the best judges of the facts. 
 On the present occasion they should be the sole judges, 
 without assertion or proof, or argument from him. They 
 were well acquainted with his past courses of life, they knew 
 how unprofitable they had been to himself personally. (We 
 thought here Mr. C. manifested the smallest conceivable bit- 
 terness in his tone, and by a slight movement of the mo- 
 bile and eloquent muscles of his face. We may readily have 
 been deceived. We felt bitterly ourselves, and may have mis- 
 taken our feelings for his expression.) They were aware, he 
 said, of the position he had just- quitted, the Senate of the 
 United States, and he referred it to them whether personal 
 ambition, taste or preference for the office he now sought at 
 their hands, could possibly have impelled him to the pursuit. 
 They knew how and when, under what circumstances, his 
 friends had called him to his present position. Kentucky had 
 honored him over and over again, in times past, and far be- 
 yond his merits. She had never denied him any thing he had 
 asked. She had now drawn him from a post which was the 
 utmost mark and bound of any ambition he had ever cher- 
 
274 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 ished. He must refer the fact to them, whether he had or 
 had not quitted that post with reluctance, and in simple defer- 
 ence to those who from former generosity had acquired the 
 right to control his own wishes, and to command and direct 
 his services. Mr. C, after an exordium somewhat like this, 
 proceeded to consider and answer certain objections, which he 
 understood to have been urged against him in the country, in 
 relation to the bill introduced by himself some years ago in 
 the Senate, to prevent the interference of federal officers 
 with elections, sometimes called the gag law ; as also his con- 
 nection with the bankrupt law, and his opinions and vote 
 upon, the State convention of Kentucky. He was brief on 
 each of these topics, and said nothing which I recollect that 
 has not been before the public through the prints. He vindi- 
 cated the first bill as sound in principle and conformable even 
 to English ptecedents. He contended that something of the 
 kind was indispensable to curb the growing and corrupt influ- 
 ence of the executive, through its army of officeholders, upon 
 popular elections. He explained that the original penalty of 
 $500 had been stricken out, and when the bill was finally 
 passed upon, the penal consequence of interference in the 
 elections, by way of persuasion or influence with the voters, 
 was removal from office. The right of suffrage, he said, had 
 been left untouched. The law only required that when the 
 people, the sovereign, the master, came forth to exert his 
 highest prerogative, the servants should be silent. At the 
 session when he voted for the bankrupt law it had fallen, and 
 his vote did no harm; when it subsequently passed, he was 
 not a member of Congress. He afterward returned to the 
 Senate, and, under the instructions of his State, voted for its 
 repeal. In relation to the convention, he stated precisely 
 what is contained in his letter recently published. 
 
 He then passed on to the approaching Presidential election, 
 drew a rapid and masterly sketch of the biography of Gene- 
 ral Taylor, pronounced an able eulogium on his military talent 
 and services, and sat down, after a speech of exactly one 
 hour. There was no stamping or noisy applause, but a low, 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELLi 275 
 
 deep murmur . came up from the bosom of the crowd, which 
 spoke plainly enough how profound the sentiment of affection 
 and respect which they cherished for the speaker. 
 
 Mr. Powell's person has become familiar to the people in 
 this part of the State, and needs no description here. He 
 rose evidently impressed with the difficulties of his situation, 
 and the advantages his adversary, or competitor rather, had 
 over him before that audience. His appearance and counte- 
 nance and manners were modest and cojiciliatory, slightly 
 embarrassed, perhaps, but perfectly firm. He noticed, with 
 great propriety, Mr. C.'s relation to the people there, paid a just 
 tribute to his abilities and character, and in a strain neither 
 fulsome nor overwrought, avowed his own admiration of the 
 man, and the pride he felt, in common with all Kentuckians, 
 in the genius and reputation of one so distinguished. He 
 complimented the county of Woodford in the same vein of 
 good taste, and proceeded with his argument. Mr. Powell 
 limited himself exactly to the time consumed by Mr. Critten- 
 den, and it was evident that, in doing so, he necessarily 
 abridged and crippled his argument. Indeed, he did not pre- 
 tend to discuss the peculiar doctrines of his party, or to un- 
 fold and vindicate the principles upon which he relied for 
 success. 
 
 Mr. Crittenden had not himself stated any particular 
 measures of policy, or avowed the principles by which Gene- 
 ral Taylor's administration would be guided, should the nation 
 elect him. There was yet no position to be assailed, no 
 ground for political discussion. Mr. Crittenden had not as- 
 sailed the present administration. He had spoken personally 
 with great respect of the President of the United States, and 
 of both the Democratic candidates, Cass and Butler. He had 
 confined himself to General Taylor's qualifications as they 
 were to be gathered from a long and honorable life, passed 
 entirely in the service of his country, during which he had 
 shown himself equal in ability to every emergency in which 
 he had been placed, and of an integrity never yet doubted. 
 He claimed the Presidency for him as the just reward of 
 
276 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 long and preeminently glorious services. His principles were 
 to be presumed. 
 
 Mr. Powell seemed to feel the want of an antagonist; he 
 had nothing set up, against which he was to contend, and of 
 this he complained. 
 
 He , stated the existence and the past struggles of the two 
 great political parties in the United States. He contended 
 that they had been divided upon and struggled for principles 
 of government and measures of policy. They had been here- 
 tofore avowed by both, they had in every contest based their 
 respective hopes and their appeals to the people upon the 
 supposed strength and soundness of the principles they advo- 
 cated. The Whigs, in 1844, had confidently unfurled their 
 banners to the breeze, with their measures for their motto 
 emblazoned in full. Had they abandoned them ? Did they 
 yield to the truth of the Democratic creed and doctrines, un- 
 der the force of their experiments ? If so, why change, why 
 wrest the government of the country from the men and the 
 party whose policy and principles, now predominant, had 
 been justified by events, and were no longer assailed by their 
 former adversaries ? Or did the Whig party, still retaining 
 their organization and ■ peculiar views of government, studi- 
 ously conceal them, and hope thus, through a popularity won 
 in the field, the popularity of a military chieftain, without 
 party or principles political, to raise into power and then 
 force a system of government upon the country, which, when 
 openly proposed, had been openly and unanswerably con- 
 demned by the nation ? This is the substance of Mr. Pow- 
 ell's speech. He enlarged upon the nature of elective and 
 representative government, and the absolute propriety and 
 necessity that the people should be fully acquainted, not 
 merely with the private character, moral worth, personal vir- 
 tues, or great talents even, of their candidates, but with the 
 practical measures and system of legislation and policy, bear- 
 ing as they did upon the prosperity, the industry, the liberty 
 of the people, which were to be advocated and enforced. He 
 pressed these views upon his own party, and illustrated them 
 
CBITTENDEN AND POWELL. 277 
 
 forcibly and happily. He warned, somewhat humorously, the 
 Whig party themselves, of their disasters under Tyler, and 
 bid them beware of a second delusion. They ought to be 
 sure of their man this time ; he was certain a no-party no- 
 principle man would not suit them. 
 
 Mr. Powell avowed himself in favor of a convention, and a 
 radical revision of the State Constitution. He wished to see 
 every aristocratic and monarchical principle stricken from it, 
 but did not particularize the changes he contemplated. He 
 disavowed having made any allusion, in Mr. C.'s absence, to 
 his course upon the bankrupt law or the bill respecting 
 elections. 
 
 Mr. Crittenden explained that he had not alluded to Mr. 
 Powell ; he had always understood and took pleasure in stat- 
 ing it, that Mr. Powell, in his absence, had treated his name 
 with respect and courtesy, and that he had not pressed either 
 of the subjects alluded to. 
 
 Mr. Powell proceeded to observe, however, that he differed 
 with Mr. Crittenden upon both the measures. He had been 
 always opposed to the bankrupt law, and thought the princi- 
 ple of the election law, as proposed, at war with the genius 
 of our institutions and the rights of our citizens. He had 
 been unable to perceive how or wherefore a citizen, by taking 
 office under his country, forfeited or should be deprived of 
 any of his civil rights as an individual, and particularly the 
 precious one of entertaining, discussing, and sustaining his 
 political opinions or preferences. Mr. Powell's speech was 
 evidently well received, and the impression with respect, both 
 to his abilities and his temper, was highly favorable. I have 
 not attempted to report his words, and have omitted many 
 smart but good-humored hits he gave the Whigs. In relation 
 to the Florida war and General Taylor's blood-hounds, he was 
 particularly happy. 
 
 When Mr, Crittenden rose to reply, his manner had under- 
 gone a great change. He was evidently roused, if not stung, 
 by the remarks of his competitor, and seemed to feel that 
 
278 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 they demanded an answer. The genius of the debater, the 
 keen, dextrous, pungent debater was up. His countenance 
 wore that expression, half comic, half sarcastic, midway be- 
 tween a smile and a sneer, with which benevolence curbs and 
 half conceals scorn, and which a soul, naturally kind and 
 generous, flings like a graceful and delicate vail over un- 
 bounded powers of raillery and ridicule. Nature has con- 
 ferred upon Mr. Crittenden, among other gifts, some of the 
 highest qualities' of an actor, and a comic actor. It requires 
 all his dignity to retain within just limits his perceptions of 
 the ludicrous, and his exquisite powers of mimicry. Those 
 who remember (and I am sure none wht> witnessed it will ever 
 forget) his introduction that day of the committee to General 
 Washington, demanding an account of his principles, and his 
 impersonation of General Cass, when he received his nomina- 
 tion by the Baltimore convention, will understand perfectly 
 what I vainly attempt to describe. The weapons of his wit, 
 if wielded by malignity, WQuld suffice to kill. In his hand, 
 however, and guarded by fraternal charity, they are used as 
 instruments of defense and chastisement. He never strikes 
 at a vital part, nor aims a mortal blow. The knife he em- 
 ploys has a guard about the edge which prevents an incision 
 deeper than the cuticle, and the wound, though it cause the 
 patient to writhe for, an instant, so keen, so smooth, so exqui- 
 sitely polished is the instrument, heals by the first intention, 
 without inflammation, suppuration, or gangrene. 
 
 In giving a sketch of Mr. C.'s reply, I shall follow his 
 thoughts rather than his words. I do not attempt to report 
 him literally ; some of the most effective passages in his 
 speech, (and they were astonishingly effective,) were I able to 
 repeat them, were nothing without the look, and the peculiar 
 accent and half-mocking pronunciation he put upon the words 
 he used. Yet all was tasteful, and he felt himself pursuing 
 this vein too far, stimulated by the evident delight and gusto 
 of the crowd. He checked the tendency to ribaldry, and, 
 observing "but this is badinage," resumed the air and post 
 of the statesman. He said the gentleman claimed a great 
 
CEITTENDEN AND POWELL. 279 
 
 advantage for his candidates over General Taylor, for they had 
 principles— oh yes, and printed too— printed principles, and 
 a platform to stand upon, a broad, strong. Democratic plat- 
 form, with printed principles for its foundation and support, 
 and poor old Eough and Beady presented himself, his naked 
 self on foot, on his own foot, without principles, or without 
 any that were printed, and without any platform at. all. 
 There was a great convenience in these principles made by 
 printing, and candidates shaped and manufactured to order. 
 These creatures of the type and the press could be changed 
 to suit circumstances, and new editions could be struck every 
 four years with various amendments and corrections. There 
 was some times a little inconvenience (for good and evil are 
 mixed together in this world) in having a President of the 
 United States fast nailed to a platform by a convention of 
 architects appointed by, nobody knows whom, and responsible 
 to nobody at all. I remember, he said, that the principal 
 printers and platform builders of 1844 laid down the boun- 
 dary of 54° 40' north latitude, as one of the principles of 
 Democracy. Oh, yes ! the parallel of 54° 40' was one of 
 the planks of the Democratic platform, and Mr. Polk, poor 
 fellow, was nailed to it without discretion, or power of mo- 
 tion, or change of position. They tried to persuade me, 
 gentlemen, that the frozen and sterile waste between the 49th 
 and 54th degree of latitude on the far shores of the Pacific 
 was my native country — aye, and General Cass was willing, 
 so stubborn and stiflF was this plank in the platform, so bind- 
 ing upon him was the authority of the builders, to involve his 
 country in a ruinous war with the greatest power on the 
 globe, in defense of an unpeopled desert three thousand miles 
 off. Mr. Polk thought better of it ; he had to think better of 
 it; he found that in the varied, extended and changeful rela- 
 tions of his country -with foreign nations; relations, the man- 
 agement of which were intrusted to him, he found that the 
 ligatures bound about the President of the United States by 
 a set of men unknown to the law and irresponsible to the 
 people, destroyed a necessary discretion, fettered his just 
 
280 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 freedom, and might ruin the State. He consulted the Senate, 
 his natural constitutional council of advisers, and they relieved 
 him from his difficulties, and saved the public peace. I do 
 not blame Mr. Polk, he said ; I am only showing how mis- 
 chievous and embarrassing sometimes, how inefficient always, 
 how unlawful, how unwise this modern doctrine and practice, 
 of having printed principles and rules drawn up by an un- 
 authorized body of men, to govern and control, for four years 
 in advance, an officer intrusted with the discharge of duties, 
 the just and wise discharge of which requires a prudent 
 adaptation of his condu'fct and his policy to the ever changing 
 face of the public affairs of a changeful world. 
 
 Does the gentleman really think that it is in the power of 
 a Baltimore convention, or of any convention, to make, to 
 manufacture principles for this government or this people? 
 And if it be so, who are these men armed with this great, 
 this transcendent power, above the law, and claiming to bind 
 in advance all the functionaries for its interpretation and exe- 
 cution? Practically, gentlemen, our institutions seem to me 
 to be undergoing a thorough, radical, and ruinous revolution. 
 The President of the United States is not to be chosen by the 
 electors, nor the electors by the great body of the people; 
 and when chosen, he is to be armed, not merely with execu- 
 tive powers, but with the power, a power which he is com- 
 pelled to exert, of annihilating all legislation upon all sub-, 
 jects, the raising of revenue and appropriation of moneys, 
 among others, unless it accord exactly with his principles, 
 views, policy, or wishes. And these principles and this policy 
 are not to be his own, not the fruit of his own patient reflec- 
 tions and labored examination of all the circumstances sur- 
 rounding the country and attending the law when passed, but 
 they are to be laid down for him by others, and he compelled 
 to subscribe, if not swear to them, before he is permitted ever 
 to come before the people as a candidate. Laid down for 
 him, and by whom? The old plan of choosing candidates 
 was in Congressional caucus. Then, at least, it was done by 
 men who had been actually and fairly elected by the people, 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 281 
 
 every man having a vote, and the elections held by law. Now 
 the electors are first chosen by conventions in the States, and 
 pledged to vote for the gentlemen nominated in a national 
 convention to be held at Baltimore, or somewhere else. This 
 convention, chosen by, nobody knows whom, representing no- 
 body knows whom, and responsible to nobody, appoints a 
 committee on principles ; yes, sir, a committee to manufacture 
 and have printed a set of principles. They meet at a tavern 
 over a basket of champagne, and fix the principles of the 
 government ; of the government of the United States for four 
 years, appoint as candidates Such persons as will subscribe to 
 these preliminary articles, and as in other respects may be 
 suitable, and having doubtless made various other little ar- 
 rangements in relation to the patronage, offices, etc., adjourn 
 to meet no more, leaving to the people the sole right of voting 
 for electors appointed by others, and the electors the sole 
 right of voting for the candidates thus selected for them. 
 This is popular government with a vengeance. Why, gentle- 
 men, by taking away all discretion, it levels all capacities. 
 One man who sigijs the principles is just as good as another. 
 It takes from the people the power of election, for the power 
 of nomination thus exercised is virtually the power of appoint- 
 ment. It destroys the distinction of power among the several 
 departments of government, and, by the use of the veto, con- 
 founds all legislation, placing for four years the law, the 
 policy, and the people in the hands of a single man, and he 
 the pledged slave and instrument of a self-constituted cabal 
 of lords and of articles. 
 
 But the gentleman's candidates have principles, principles 
 drawn up and printed as asserted. General Cass has signed 
 them. I have no doubt he would have signed them in the 
 dark, and that he would have signed them if there had been 
 twice as many more. I am told that he was delighted when 
 he received them, and the news of his nomination by the Bal- 
 timore Convention. I am told, and doubt not, that he stroked 
 himself up and down, (here Mr. Crittenden rubbed his hands 
 up and down over his abdomen, after the manner of an old 
 
282 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 gentleman of goodly proportion, upon the receipt of the most 
 gratifying intelligence;) yes, he rubbed himself up and down, 
 and he exclaimed, oh, but this is truly a great nation ! 
 
 But General Taylor, I suppose, gentlemen, has no princi- 
 ples, because he has authorized nobody to write them out for 
 him. The government can not be trusted to his hands, because 
 he says, if edected by the people, he will be President of a 
 nation, and not the instrument of a party. He does not think 
 that principles, or at least his principles, can be manufactured 
 by a committee over their wine. He has other ideas of the 
 principles of a President of the United States, and of the evi- 
 dence of their existence and quality. So have I, said Mr. C. ; 
 I can not regard the occasional opinions of party meetings 
 upon party measures as deserving the name of principles. I 
 have considered a principle, whether in morals, politics or 
 philosophy, as a great, all-pervading; general truth, impressed 
 by the divinity upon man or nature at the moment of their 
 creation. I have considered it as a rule, something fixed fast 
 in the nature of things. Not a measure, not a fact, not an 
 individual object, but an invariable standard in morals and 
 politics, or a general type in nature, to which actions and ob- 
 jects are to be referred, and by which they are to be tested 
 as to their class or quality. The principles which guide a 
 man's understanding and control his actions are discoverable 
 by an observation of his whole life ; and the result of the ob- 
 servation is likewise to be more or less correct, according to 
 the Variety and severity of the circumstances under which he 
 has been called to act. Tried by this test, gentlemen, has 
 General Taylor no principles ? Has he not the very prin- 
 ciples ground into him, compounded until inseparably with 
 his moral being, the very principles and qualities a sensible 
 and sober-minded people should desire in a Chief Magistrate? 
 Is he just, is he faithful to his word, is he brave, does he love 
 his country? Has he been clothed with power, and accus- 
 tomed to high command ? How has he exercised it ? Has he 
 been placed in a subordinate station ? how has he demeaned 
 himself to his superiors? Has he moved in difficult circum- 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 283 
 
 stances, surrounded with dangers, pressed with enemies, 
 clothed with supreme command with thousands of his fellow 
 men, dependent for life and safety upon the steadiness of his 
 nerves, and the comhinations and decisions of his judgment; 
 how has he borne himself? Has he seen battle, has the storm 
 of war broken over him, has it been his stern duty to direct 
 the murderous charge and gaze on fields of slaughter ; how 
 did he lead? Did he blench from the helm when the wind 
 blew highest; did his sjiirit sink or soar as the whirlwind 
 swept over him? Has victory perched upon his standard? 
 When flushed with triumph, and fresh from the bloody con- 
 flict, with what countenance has he regarded the vanquished ? 
 Let his life, his long, his honorable, his glorious life, answer 
 these questions. And is there no principle involved in jus- 
 tice, truth, courage and patriotism? Can a committee manu- 
 facture these ? or is there any guarantee for them so sure as 
 the whole life and entire conduct of the man ? General Tay- 
 lor, said Mr. C, is a soldier, a successful soldier, yet fond of 
 peace. He fears no danger and courts no quarrel. Is there 
 not pledge enough in the character of such a man for his 
 conduct ; aye, and his principles, too, if elevated to power ? 
 Is there not a peculiar and beautiful adaptation of that char- 
 acter to the present condition of the world and the circum- 
 stances in which he will be called to act? The surface of 
 European society is disturbed beyond example, it is heaving 
 as under the first throes of an earthquake. What agencies 
 are at work, or what fiery elements exist within its bosom, we 
 know not. The volcano, so long tranquil, may be again in 
 action — may again break forth in wasting war, and vomit 
 crime and blood upon the world. Who, in the midst of the 
 troubled and heaving nations, who so fit to guide our own as 
 the man whose renown in war commands the respect of all 
 Europe, and who, although he has shown himself invincible in 
 arms, courts for his country and himself the fame of justice 
 and the charms of peace ? 
 
 Rely upon it, gentlemen, General Taylor has principles. 
 He has principles like General Washington. Do not under- 
 
284 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 stand me, he said, as claiming for him equality with General 
 Washington. That man stood and stands alone in this world's 
 history utterly unequalled ; but we may strive to imitate what 
 we can not equal. But General Taylor has won the confi- 
 dence of his countrymen by the same means; he has travelled 
 the same road with General Washington. Now only fancy, 
 in the year 1789 a committee of politicians, a little squad of 
 party organizers, a clique of gentlemen, who had risen into 
 their then state of august distinction, by figuring at county 
 meetings, or it may be by discussing principles in debating 
 societies, fancy such a body convened by their own authority, 
 voluntarily assuming the onerous duty of selecting for the 
 whole nation a suitable and proper person to undertake the 
 guidance of our public affairs under the new-made constitu- 
 tion. Fancy further, if you please, that first and foremost, 
 before they could trust any one of the great men with which 
 the country then teemed, they must draw up a creed, a cate- 
 chism, in which the fortunate and honored object of their 
 august choice must be examined and found perfect, and sub- 
 scribe, as the rule of his faith and practice, before this same 
 self-created committee could permit him to appear before the 
 people as a candidate at all, or the people be permitted to 
 vote for him, whether a candidate or not. Imagine, if you 
 please, they had taken the precaution to have their code of 
 principles printed, that there might be no mistake, and then, 
 after mature deliberation, it had occurred to them that, may 
 be. General George Washington might do, might answer their 
 purpose, if he would only sign the printed principles. Go on, 
 gentlemen, and figure to yourselves the shades of Mount Ver- 
 non — the lawn, the trees, the bights where still stands, in 
 simple majesty, the hero's homestead, unchanged since last 
 its walls resounded to his tread; the noble river, which there 
 spreads itself out like a broad mirror to receive and fling 
 back, as if in grateful pride, the image of the most beautiful 
 and affecting scenery in the world — surround, steep yourselves 
 in the very genius of the spot, and there, in the cool of the 
 summer evening, in the portico which looks to the East, 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 285 
 
 dedicated to his solitary musing, seated with thoughtful brow, 
 and all capacious eye, bending its deep, tranquil gaze upon 
 the deep and tranquil stream he loved so much, behold the 
 grand, the awful form of the Father of his country. The 
 war was over, the anarchy which followed, a danger far more 
 terrible than war, had passed away. The mighty elements 
 of prosperity and power, which nature had scattered over the 
 land, were united at last ; concentrated and safe under a con- 
 stitution which bound the States together without constraint, 
 arid only disproving them of the power to hurt or annoy each 
 other, left every member and muscle of this new and glorious 
 body free to exert itself in all useful labor and every peaceful 
 exercise. Liberty was established. Imagine him thus seated 
 and thus musing, the curtain which vails the future uprolled 
 by Providence, and all the coming glories of his country 
 spread out bright, glowing, palpable before that same deep 
 and tranquil eye. Shall we disturb him, dare we break in 
 upon his solitude, t)r interrupt his mighty thread of thought ? 
 Yes, let us finish the picture our fancy has begun. A knock, 
 a servant — General Washington, a committee of gentlemen 
 request an audience. Show the gentlemen in, and with a 
 grave politeness and a dignity which never through life de- 
 serted him, a dignity which was with him in death, when 
 he turned his face to the wall in conscious pride, that 
 the last agony which convulsed and distorted the hitherto 
 heroic calm of his features might have no witness, with that 
 same dignity which triumphed over death, he rises to receive 
 a committee of his countrymen. They come, all fearless and 
 unblushing, with printed -principles in hand. General, say 
 they, we have an important commission to execute, and pro- 
 position to lay before you. We are, sir, a committee, ap- 
 pointed by a convention, appointed, we believe, by themselves, 
 whose right and undoubted office it is to represent and speak 
 for the democracy of this land. The new constitution is about 
 to be launched into practice, we want a steady and valuable 
 hand at the helm in the commencement of the voyage. The 
 first election of President is at hand. We do not think it 
 
286 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 entirely safe to leave the choice of this office to the electors 
 directed by the constitution. It is the particular business of 
 the convention to nominate before hand such person as they 
 may think most suitable for the electors to choose, and the 
 electors, at least such as hold pure democratic principles, will 
 be pledged to support our nominee. That there may be no 
 doubt, no doubt at all, sir, what these democratic principles 
 are, and that the future President, whoever he may be, may 
 be saved all trouble of thinking, all doubt and difficulty under 
 perplexing circumstances, we have been appointed a commit- 
 tee on principles ; yes, sir, a committee to whom was referred 
 the business of manufacturing principles and having them 
 nicely printed, to be signed by our candidate, and to serve 
 for his guidance during the first four years. We have dis- 
 charged that duty, and have been sent to notify you that you 
 shall be the nominee, upon condition that you sign. We have 
 the principles along, printed on the best paper and with im- 
 perial type. The face long used to va,il emotion, and never 
 apt to kindle under light or transient excitement; the face 
 of the hero remains fixed, rigid, impassive marble. Proceed, 
 gentlemen, if you please. Well, general, you may suppose 
 that the constitution, with your own good sense and honest 
 purpose, is a sufficient guide ; or you may imagine, that upon 
 any doubt or default of your own judgment, you will have a 
 council of legal advisers, able men, to be selected for their 
 integrity and intelligence, their knowledge of the intricate 
 sciences of government, and their pure and tried devotion to 
 their country. Men who are known to the country, who will 
 be filling high official station, and will be responsible to the 
 country and to you for the advice and opinions they give. 
 Or you may imagine that there are two branches of the legis- 
 lature, one chosen directly by the people, and coming from 
 small districts of country with the rights, wishes and prin- 
 ciples of which, each representative must, of course, be 
 acquainted ; and the other chosen by the States, upon a 
 principle of perfect equality among sovereigns,' the smallest 
 State being equal to the largest in weight and power in the 
 
CEITTENDEN AND POWELL. 287 
 
 Senate; now possibly it may have occurred to you that these, 
 too, are among your counsellors and advisers, and a source 
 •whence you may draw sound expositions of the law, and the 
 most authentic evidence of the state of popular opinion, and 
 the public will ; or you may imagine that there is a fourth 
 council, judicial in its character, the Supreme Federal Court, 
 appointed by the constitution as its very oracle, pi'iest, and 
 keeper, and that in case both branches of the legislature and 
 the • President, and his cabinet to boot, should all, after the 
 purest intentions, and the most laborious thought, commit a 
 blunder, and transcend the commission of the people as ex- 
 pressed in their constitution, why this court, this council of 
 old men, whose only business it is to study and expound law, 
 who have no connection with, and who are not afraid in the 
 least of any other branch of the government, inasmuch as the 
 people have secured their independence, by rendering their 
 salaries and commission safe from the arbitrary action or ca- 
 price or resentment of both President and Congress, that they 
 may judge the law free from any sort of apprehension of the 
 law makers, why this court have the power, in the last resort, 
 to assert the paramount authority of the constitution, and to 
 set aside as void any statute which Congress and the Presi- 
 dent may have enacted contrary to its provisions, whether 
 from rashness, inattention, ignorance, passion, or even cor- 
 ruption. Or you may think that your whole life passed in 
 the service of your country, and under the full blaze of the 
 public eye, under the searching scrutiny of the whole world, 
 is pledge enough for your principles, even though all the other 
 guarantees, cabinet council, house of representatives, senate 
 and court, should fail in their duty. This is a very natural 
 mistake, general; you are a soldier, your business has been 
 war, you have not studied politics ; there is an art, a mystery 
 in politics which you men of the sword do not understand. 
 Indeed, general, we have understood that you yourself have 
 doubted your ability to guide the intricate and complicated 
 affairs of a governmient like ours, and in the present threat- 
 ening circumstances of the world, so diffident are you of your 
 
288 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 political abilities, it has been hinted by some that you can not 
 be induced to accept the office, though the people themselves, 
 thoughtless creatures, should have more confidence in you 
 than you have in yourself, and elect you any how. But you 
 are very right, general, military men do not understand 
 politics. 
 
 Now we are anxious to give you this nomination ; you are 
 decidedly popular, and if you will only sign, if you will only 
 pledge, if you will only be our man, if you will only satisfy 
 the honorable body we represent, that you have principles, 
 why here goes : You are the nominee of Democracy. We 
 know your history, general, we believe you to be honest, we 
 have heard a great deal about you from your youth up ; but 
 we do not know any thing about your principles ; we have 
 heard it hinted, nay, it has been broadly asserted, that you 
 have no party and no principles — no party and no principles ? 
 Why, general, a man had as well have no country — better. 
 Now, as to your past life, general, that will not do. To be 
 sure we understand that you are of good family and well 
 raised, that you derived your first impressions — and they were 
 impressions of truth, honor, piety — from a mother of rare 
 discretion, intelligence and virtue. We understand that you 
 have received an excellent, plain, practical English education : 
 we have heard, that when quite a boy, you were a capital 
 surveyor — we know that early fame gave notice of that rare 
 combination of qualities, which, through a long course of the 
 most wondrous events, have never failed in any particular, 
 and attracted to you, while yet a boy, the attention of the 
 colonial government ; we know that you were early employed 
 in the most difficult, the most delicate, the most dangerous 
 service, and that the result of each employment only increased 
 the confidence, already great, in your precocious character and 
 extraordinary talents. We know full well that ere the down 
 upon your lip had ripened to virility, aged men sought your 
 council, that when the notes of savage warfare sounded from 
 the forest, and its deadly whoop broke over all the border of 
 your native colony, grown men rallied to the call of the 
 
CEITTENDEN AND POWELL. 289 
 
 youthful avenger, and that age, and sex, and infancy reposed 
 in safety under the shield ~of your lion arm, and slept securely 
 under the vigilance of that young eye, which knew no sleep 
 when danger was at hand. We know that war upon a larger 
 scale broke out, and that your veteran reputation, then in 
 your first manhood, again made you a leader under the stand- 
 ard of him who was then your king. Again the danger 
 roused your genius ; again that prodigious capacity, that vast 
 strength of judgment, that wonderous sagacity, that rare, that 
 marvellous prudence, which weighs all probabilities, masters 
 and ponders all circumstances, deliberates with the caution of 
 the most rigid philosopher, risks nothing upon chance, or 
 from the thirst of glory, yet combined with that fierce courage 
 of action, which sweeps to its object, when decided, with the 
 speed of the eagle and the daring impetuosity of the forest 
 king, we know that under the spur of powerful circumstances 
 these qualities broke through the shackles of a subordinate 
 position, and the thick cloak of a modesty which haunts you 
 yet, and would now, you being judge, shroud you from the 
 gaze of an admiring world, and bar you from the service of a 
 grateful country, broke forth, we say, and proclaime'd the 
 young provincial the first general of the age. We know, too, 
 general, that though occasion always found your genius ready 
 and armed at every point, you never sought occasion for its 
 display. Heaven, which shaped you for its instrument, fur- 
 nished, however, the precise occasion, and man had wit enough 
 to hunt you even in the depth of that obscurity you seemed 
 so studiously to seek. We know too, general, that with all 
 your military talents and experience you are a considerable 
 farmer, and have ever been, for a great man, remarkably de- 
 voted to agricultural pursuits. Another war, the last, the 
 grandest, the boldest, the most just in its purpose, the darkest 
 and the most portentous, the most dangerous in its progress 
 and execution, but most inconceivably magnificent in its re- 
 sults, of any that has been waged since man first began to 
 shed his brother's blood, this war, which broke the frame, and 
 dismembered the parts of the greatest empire on earth, found 
 
290 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 you at the plow. It was the war of a member, a weak and 
 infant member, against the fullgrown and powerful head of a 
 powerful State. The long-established code of public morals, 
 the venerated sentiments of all existing governments, were 
 against it. It was waged for objects, and upon principles 
 that were new and forbidden by every political canon of the 
 prevailing faith of the world. It was, in its inception, a war 
 of rebellion against lawful government, it was disloyal, it was 
 according to the statute book, the common law, and the then 
 prevailing science of government, the darkest, the most dam- 
 nable of crimes — high treason, patricide. The bold spirits who 
 commenced the conflict, fought in defiance of the whole sys- 
 tein of the world, they fought with halters — felon's halters — 
 rouiid their necks. 
 
 " They sought a leader equal to the feud." The invitation 
 to command in this desperate strife against such desperate 
 odds was, in fact, an invitation to mount the scaffold. We 
 know they turned to yOu and found you, as ever, attentive to 
 the call of honor and of danger, still distrustful, however, of 
 your own capacity for so high, so responsible a trust. It was 
 indeed most high, most responsible. The fate of the human 
 race depended on- the result of that conflict, and that result 
 depended, to all human seeming, then and now, upon the 
 character of the leader. The principles and objects for which 
 it was declared and waged, involved the rights of human na- 
 ture and the freedom of nations. In its results was involved 
 the extinction of those principles, of their triumphant and 
 eternal establishment. You brought to that struggle and to 
 that post the same great qualities which we have described; 
 qualities, no doubt, originally impressed by the hand of a 
 beneficent God, developed in early life by the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of your youth, strengthened in the hard stern 
 school of practice, and now matured into perfection, by long 
 years of patient, deep reflection. We know, the world knows, 
 coming ages, the latest generations of men, will know and 
 bless the result of that struggle, and the name of the leader 
 ■who conducted it to that result. It conducted your country 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 291 
 
 to liberty, true liberty, we believe, general, and it has con- 
 ducted you, Gen-eral Washington, — a result unsought, unex- 
 pected by you, we believe ; a result, so far as your aim or 
 efforts were concerned, entirely collateral, — but it has conducted 
 you along a dark, steep, precipitous road, right up the moun- 
 tain of fame, to its very summit, to the topmost pinnacle, 
 never trod before by mortal foot, with just breadth enough of 
 pedestal for a single figure, and there, on that fir and unap- 
 proachable hight, it has left you, immeasurably above the 
 crowded world of history, in eternal solitude, without a peer, 
 without a rival. General, we do not mean to flatter, we are 
 democrats, and never flatter great men — great men are very 
 dangerous articles in a really democratic country — they break 
 that dead level of equality, the establishment and maintenance 
 of which is one of our principles. Their greatness most fre- 
 quently makes them ambitious, and when the public danger 
 has for a time silenced envy, and driven into retirement and 
 silence the convention men, and committee men, and stump 
 speakers, when the shrill call of the bugle, and the hoarse 
 roar of the drum and the deep-toned thunder of the artillery, 
 has hushed or drowned the voice of the real simon pure 
 democratic orators, and made them pocket their principles for 
 a while, and promote men to posts of danger without too close 
 inspection of their politics ; these great men that no body 
 ever dreamed of for oflBce in peace, by the splendor of their 
 achievements, and their hardihood of valor, sometimes turn 
 the people's heads, and when the danger is past, and peace 
 has come, and it is time for people to think about principles 
 again, these fellows start up, or somebody starts them up with 
 their ambition, and the real democratic principles are endan- 
 gered by these military ehieftaim. Now, we do not think you 
 are exactly of the stripe of usurpers, or have ever designed 
 to overthrow the liberties of your country. We know you 
 surrendered your commission, and disbanded your army, 
 though it was devoted to you; and grumbling terribly about 
 pay, yet you disbanded them, and threw away your sword 
 the moment peace was restored and Independence acknow- 
 
292 T. P. MAKSHALL. 
 
 ledged. We know all this, and think better of you than of 
 most great men, so do the people. But, general, to make 
 short of a long story, we do n't know your principles, and a 
 candidate without principles will not do. There are some 
 things in the new constitution we are afraid of — we are afraid 
 of the Federalists, we are afraid of a leaning to the British 
 model, we are afraid of that fellow Hamilton ; to be sure he 
 fought through the war, and was your aid-de-camp, and all 
 that, but they say he admires the British constitution, and is' 
 no better than a Tory and an Englishman at heart, and worse, 
 they say you have spoken of him with respect. We are afraid 
 of British banks and their doings, we are afraid of Congress, 
 they have too much power; a President can't have too much, 
 if he is one of us, and will sign our principles. Now, gene- 
 ral, let us know your principles, speak out like a man, or 
 rather sign ours, you are nominated in a jiify — we will stump 
 it for you, puff you, praise you, and you will be our Presi- 
 dent by force of our nomination. Imagine, if you can, the 
 long gathering storm now concentrated in all its mass on that 
 Olympian brow. Turn to yon committee > look at them, they 
 perceive their blunder too late. Great God, said Mr. Critten- 
 den, we can not measure or imagine unearthly punishment, 
 (and his look toward where the committee were supposed to 
 stand, a look full of sublime, superhuman, unutterable con- 
 tempt, a look such as his excited imagination brought to his 
 face; the copy, the exact copy, doubtless, of the Washington 
 that was in his soul, overpowered the crowd, and they burst 
 into one loud and long-continued roar of applause, which 
 drowned the residue of the sentence ; it was never finished.) 
 
 Mr. C. proceeded to remark, that he could not perceive why 
 his competitor should feel any anxiety on the score of General 
 Taylor's principles, as he would not support the general upon 
 any terms. General Taylor had said he was a whig, though 
 not an ultra whig. General Taylor had said that he would 
 not interpose the veto in ordinary cases of legislation. He 
 deemed that power to have been conferred to protect coordi- 
 nate branches of the government from legislative assault, to 
 
CRITTEN-DEN AND POWELL. 293 
 
 giiard the constitution from violation,, and the country from 
 hasty legislation. It was a high power to be exerted on rare 
 occasions, and with great caution. It was the extreme medi- 
 cine and not the ordinary diet of the constitution. The gen- 
 tleman had asked Mr. 0. what General Taylor thought of the 
 Wilmot Proviso. I have not been authorized, said Mr. C, to 
 speak for General Taylor, but I can answer the gentleman, 
 that General Taylor was born in Virginia, was raised and 
 educated in Kentucky, now resides in Louisiana, is the pro- 
 prietor of 155 slaves, and is an extensive sugar a'hd, cotton 
 planter. I should imagine the slave States had a better 
 guarantee in all these circumstances, that General Taylor was 
 no enemy to their just rights, than a pledge extorted under 
 the h«pe of a party nomination could possibly afford. And 
 since the gentleman seemed inquisitive on this point, he could 
 tell him, that whatever General Cass might be now, two years 
 ago he was known to be warmly and decidedly in favor of 
 the Wilmot Proviso. He had complained of the adjournment 
 of Congress on that ground, alleging that if the session 
 had been protracted somewhat, the proviso would have been 
 adopted. He, Mr. C, had been informed by Mr.. Winthrop, 
 speaker of the House of Representatives, that he had heard 
 General Cass in the stage, openly and warmly among the 
 passengers, vindicating the Wilmot Proviso. 
 
 Mr. C. rejoiced, if General Taylor came into power, that 
 he would approach that high place unfettered and unpledged 
 to any other rule than the constitution, and his own good 
 sense under the circumstances in which he might be placed; 
 General Taylor had said (he, Mr. C, had seen it in his own 
 hand writing) that if it was expected of him to reward or 
 punish men for their political opinion, to proscribe from oflBce 
 and civil preferment any portion of his fellow-citizens on 
 party grounds, men would find themselves grievously mis- 
 taken. That Whig and Democrat had flocked together to the 
 standard of their common country — under his eye, and by 
 his order, they had poured out their blood together in its de- 
 fense, and that for himself, he would as soon turn his back 
 
294 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 upon an enemy as exert the power with which the law might 
 clothe him to punish a citizen for his free opinions. 
 
 Mr. 0. wound up by saying that a President of the United 
 States should, if possible, discard from his mind all former 
 prepossessions, prejudices, or principles, if you please, such 
 loose opinions as he may have formed in private life, or in a 
 different position where they were not to be practically ex- 
 erted, and could have no bearing upon the public, were to be 
 all rigorously revised, or! rather thrown away. A President 
 of the Uniteid States should be regenerated, actually made 
 over, and approach the discharge of his duties with a new 
 mind, or a mind exempt from all bias, washed clean of all 
 prejudice, and free to examine all objects in the new points 
 of view in which they must present themselves from the new 
 and elevated position from which he was to behold them. 
 
 Mr. PoweU rejoined in a speech of some twenty minutes. 
 He said a great change had come over some people in this 
 nation upon the subject of military rulers, since the days of 
 General Jackson. Once it had been held by the whig party, 
 if he remembered right, that one of the greatest dangers to 
 which a republic was exposed, was the excessive admiration 
 of the people for mere military leaders. Now it seems they 
 have selected as their political head a man whose only claim 
 is military service — a man who has been in the army all his 
 life ; whose civil qualifications have been subjected to no test, 
 whose political opinions, so far as the great practical measures 
 of the government, heretofore, and still the subject of deepest 
 interest with the people of the United States are concerned, 
 are unknown or unavowed. The gentleman had directed the 
 powerful artillery of his wit and rhetoric against "printed 
 principles." For the soul of him, Mr. Powell said, he could 
 not conceive that printing a principle made it any worse. 
 The democratic convention had never claimed to create a prin- 
 ciple by printing it. The principle existed before, the print- 
 ing only made it known. His competitor seemed to think 
 that " printed principles were very convenient, as they might 
 be changed." Now he humbly submitted whether principles, 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 295 
 
 unprinted and unavowed, might not be more easily shifted to 
 suit the occasion, and be more readily adapted to party pur- 
 poses. His competitor's definition of principle he thought 
 entirely too general and abstract for any practical political 
 purpose. He had as Wjell confine a candidate to the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, or to a belief in the decalogue. He 
 rather apprehended, after all, that General Taylor, if elected, 
 would find himself in the hands of men -who would hold him, 
 and hold him strictly, to principles, which, though not printed 
 now, were snugly laid away for the present, to be produced 
 in due season. He was authorized in this by the history of 
 the past. He remembered that when the Harrisburg conven- 
 tion nominated General Harrison and John Tyler in 1840, 
 they put forth no programme of the measures or principles 
 of that administration. The thing worked then admirably, 
 he acknowledged ; the no principle candidates were elected in 
 a perfect whirlwind. But mark the sequel; no sooner had 
 the administration commenced its career, and Congress con- 
 vened, than we hear enough of principles, of party principles 
 and party measures. Why was John Tyler so bitterly de- 
 nounced, and by whom? The whig party, and their great 
 leader in Congress, Mr. Clay, alleged that their principles 
 were betrayed by the administration, the very measures de- 
 feated which they had been elected to carry out. Mr. Tyler 
 denied that he had been pledged to any set of measures, de- 
 nied that he was elected to carry Mr. Clay's peculiar system 
 into execution, claimed to be the President of the United 
 States, and by virtue of his high office to be entitled to the 
 free exercise of an unfettered judgment. He may have been 
 regenerated after his election ; I know not ; but I put it to my 
 competitor whether printed principles, aye, printed and sub- 
 scribed to, would not have been of main utility in settling 
 that question of treason. I am not defending Mr. Tyler; I 
 believe he betrayed his party, and I condemn him for it, but 
 I am only showing the propriety of having the opinions of 
 public men made public, and am showing it from the history 
 of that very party to whom I am opposed. Publicity, I have 
 
296 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 been in the habit of considering, as of the life and essence of 
 popular institutions, secrecy, and mystery, and intrigue and 
 fitness, for the cabinets of princes. It is possible, that with a 
 candid avowal of the principles afterward attempted to be 
 enforced, Harrison and Tyler may not have been elected, 
 The whigs, however, would have lost nothing by this ; they 
 could not have been worse off than under that administration. 
 Warned, however, by their fate, then, they came forward again 
 for the contest in 1844, under a leader of whose principles 
 and objects there was no doubt. He was, indeed, a distin- 
 guished statesman ; he had just endeavored to force upon the 
 acting President of the United States a set, a system of 
 measures well understood. He had denounced and crushed 
 that administration for its recreancy to him. 
 
 Over him there hung no mystery — not a doubt. His prin- 
 ciples had been avowed, proclaimed, pressed through a long 
 life. They had formed the subject of bitter controversy and 
 fierce struggle for twenty years. They were published, then 
 printed. Bank, land distribution, protective tariff, anti-annex- 
 ation, " the veto power," were written all over the folds of 
 every whig banner, and every whig press groaned under argu- 
 ment and declamation in their support. The democratic doc- 
 trines, their views of the constitution and the true policy 
 under it, were set forth with equal clearness and in direct 
 opposition. The issues were fairly made, the battle was man- 
 fully fought. Never was the nation brought up to decide 
 with more distinctness upon national measures. Never could 
 a people be called upon to decide upon opposite systems of 
 policy with a clearer knowledge of the points in dispute. 
 The whigs had won without principles ; they lost upon their 
 avowal before the nation. What means the present guarded 
 silence? Is the experiment of 1840 to be tried over again? 
 That was indeed the most extraordinary event I ever wit- 
 nessed. That successful campaign of hard cider, log cabins, 
 long poles, and coon skins, without principles, was a phe- 
 nomenon. Struck with it rather as a diseased convulsion, 
 than the regular action of the public mind, to be accounted 
 
CRITTENDEN" AND POWELL. 297 
 
 for upon any known laws of the moral or political world, I 
 consulted a physician on the subject. He told me that it was 
 undoubtedly a disease of the public mind, epidemic in its 
 character, but it was of that type of epidemic which, like the 
 small-pox, the people can only take once. It looks very 
 much, however, as if our whig friends expected to inoculate 
 the people with it a second time. Indeed, their preference 
 for Mr. Clay is avowed, if they had any hope of electing him. 
 General Taylor is second choice, and taken upon the sole 
 ground of availability. What means this? Why is Mr. Clay 
 less available ? He is a civilian of high attainments, a states- 
 man of large experience, an orator of unrivalled powers, and 
 a leader of unflinching firmness, and preferred even by my 
 competitor as President. Why is he not available ? What 
 means that ^ord availability? What can it mean but that 
 Mr. Clay's system of government is known ; that it is known, 
 if he were elected, and his party are brought into power, they 
 will reverse the whole policy of the past administration, and 
 that when brought fairly before the people, that system has 
 been steadily rejected. What can it mean but that by a cau- 
 tious concealment, or entire silence as to the future views of 
 party, a dextrous avoidance of unpopular issues and ques- 
 tions, democratic votes may be won to support a man whose 
 renown in arms has raised the reputation, extended the power, 
 and excited, as it ought to have done, the gratitude of his 
 country. The democratic President of the United States is 
 to be charged as the sole author of the war alleged to be 
 declared by him, in violation of the rights of Congress, and 
 in the teeth of the constitution. The war itself to be de- 
 nounced as unnecessary, unconstitutional, unwise, unjust. The 
 administration to be thwarted, crossed, opposed, villified in 
 every stage of its progress. The example is to be set of pit- 
 ting a general in the field, even while in the field, in oppo- 
 sition as a candidate for the Presidency to the government 
 which he serves. The dangerous example of making it the 
 interest of the chief commander of armies to throw blame 
 and disgrace, if possible, upon the administration at home, to 
 
298 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 become the champion and the instrument of political opposi- 
 tion, is to be introduced by a party heretofore signalized by 
 their dread of military men. The singular spectacle is pre- 
 sented, of a party condemning a war throughout, •warning the 
 country of the growing love of conquest, of the danger of fos- 
 tering the military spirits, of the damnable character of the 
 recent war, and at the same time bringing forward, as a can- 
 didate for the Presidency, a gentleman whose entire claims rest 
 upon his vigorous and successful prosecution of this very war, 
 a gentleman who has never held civil oflSce, and refuses 
 to avow a political principle. It would be scarcely unchari- 
 table to question the sincerity of our whig friends. Let the 
 democracy be upon their guard ; let them not be deceived. I 
 need not vindicate their principles here ; they have not been 
 assailed. 
 
 I can not attack General Taylor's principles; none have 
 been avowed save those great principles of morality to which 
 all men profess obedience. Perhaps his declaration in the 
 Allison letter, upon the subject of the veto, may be considered 
 as the avowal of a principle. It is, however, so vague and 
 undefined as not to be taken hold of. He leaves us utterly 
 in the dark as to what he would consider unconstitutional, or 
 hasty legislation. My competitor is not authorized, he tells 
 us, to pledge him on the Wilmot Proviso, further than the 
 circumstances of his position and private interests pledge him. 
 This, it seems, has not convinced the northern people. I see 
 the northern papers claim him as a friend of the Wilmot Pro- 
 viso, and urge him upon the people upon that ground. I do 
 not say he is : far from it, I only refer to it as showing how 
 the mystery of his silence is calculated to mislead or to con- 
 fuse the public. If, however, the general be opposed to the 
 Wilmot Proviso, the slave States gain nothing by his election 
 under his views of the veto power, unless he chance to think 
 that Congress can not constitutionally legislate on the subject. 
 
 My competitor has ridiculed the platform of 1844, and has 
 exhibited the awkward dilemma of the President upon the 
 compromise line at 49° of north latitude. I do not understand 
 
CEITTENDEN AND POWELL. 299 
 
 that the platform fixed, or that Mr. Polk was pledged to, the 
 parallel of 54° 40' as the fixed boundary, and his ultimatum 
 in the negotiation. I am very confident he was not. The 
 title to Oregon -was an unsettled one. The British government 
 had theretofore refused, or at least evaded a settlement of it. 
 The American government had ofi"ered, over and over again, 
 to fix the boundary at 49°, and the proposition had been 
 steadily rejected. It was a question of great and growing in- 
 terest. There was, before the last Presidential election, a 
 strong party opposed to pressing the fiegotiation. ' They 
 dreaded bringing it to an issue. The democratic doctrine was, 
 that the question should be settled, and settled upon the 
 American ground — the British claim to the mouth of the Co- 
 lumbia being held as inadmissible. The American proposition, 
 for twenty years, had been the line of 49°. Mr. Polk, when 
 he brought the subject up for negotiation, renewed the same 
 proposition. That was his original position on the question. 
 It was rejected. The compromise failing, he did not drop the 
 subject as former administrations had done, but, true to his 
 pledge, claimed to the extent of our title, and brought the 
 matter before Congi-ess. The British Cabinet, under the en- 
 ergetic conduct of the President, who was preparing for the 
 military occupation of the country, and, if necessary, the 
 forcible assertion of our whole right, the British Cabinet, un- 
 der what the opposition in Corigress considered as a threat, 
 came into Mr. Polk's original proposition, and yielded under 
 a threat, what they had steadily refused for twenty years. 
 Mr. Polk violated no pledge to his friends, and yielded no 
 ground to a foreign nation, when he carried, by a threat of 
 war the very terms which had always been off'ered in negotia- 
 tion. Mr. Powell said that Mr. C, in his admiration of Gene- 
 ral Taylor, had almost overlooked the other part of the whig 
 ticket, Mr. Fillmore. He warned the democracy to remem- 
 ber, that, in voting for General Taylor, they must take Mr. 
 Fillmore along with him, and vote against General Butler, a 
 gentleman somewhat known in peace as well as war, and en- 
 
300 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 titled, in the judgment of a great many, to be regarded with 
 pride and admiration by all Kentuckians. 
 
 His competitor had said that he, Mr. Powell, would not 
 vote for General Taylor, at any rate, or upon any terms. 
 
 He must confess, as matters now stood at present, he did 
 not think he could. But if General Taylor could undergo the 
 regeneration of which his competitor spoke as being necessary 
 for a President of the United States, and the whig party along 
 with him, of which he thought the latter stood much in need, 
 why, after the new birth, it might be a very different affair. 
 The debate here closed. Mr. Powell was frequently cheered 
 loudly during his remarks. The whigs spoke of him with 
 respect and kindness. They were surprised, and, to do them 
 justice, rather pleased to find him so very different from what 
 he had been represented. No matter what they expected, 
 they found a modest, well behaved, fine looking, sensible man, 
 entering into the arena with Mr. Crittenden, duly and properly 
 impressed with the greater weight of the age and reputation, 
 and fully sensible of the real merit and virtues of his com- 
 petitor, returning his courtesy, if not with equal grace, at least 
 with equal kindness, and notwithstanding his inferiority in re- 
 nown and his modest sense of it, buckling to the work his 
 party had set before him, and giving and receiving blows 
 with knightly courage as well as knightly courtesy. One main 
 inducement to the preparation of this report was to correct 
 the misrepresentation of a most unjust and paltry notice of 
 this debate, which appeared in the Louisville Courier a few 
 days afterward, in which, among other things, it was stated, 
 that by an arrangement among Powell's friends, a noisy effort 
 was made to prevent Mr. C.'s reply ; and that after the re- 
 ply, Mr. Powell vanished, and had not since been heard of. 
 From whatever motive, or from whatever quarter the call may 
 have proceeded, which stopped for a moment Mr. Crittenden's 
 reply, rest assured it was not from Mr. P.'s friends exclu- 
 sively, and so far from vanishing, he rejoined substantially in 
 the terms above set forth. 
 
CRITTENDEN AND POWELL. 301 
 
 The writer of this owes a slight apology to the gentlemen, 
 and a hrief explanation to the public, in case you should 
 think this letter worth publication. He differs from Mr. 
 Crittenden upon several grave political questions, deemed by 
 them both of vast importance to the greatness and prosperity 
 of their common country. He regrets Mr. Crittenden's past, 
 and some of his present political connections, but entertains 
 for his personal character the highest respect ; and for his 
 talents, his virtues, and his noble temper, admiration the most 
 unbounded. Should this report, purporting to be a full one, 
 of his speech, which all men who heard it acknowledged to be 
 splendid, ever meet his eye, I dread his censure of the pre- 
 sumption which dared such a task, though the offender be for 
 ever unknown. Mr. Crittenden has suffered, and does suffer, 
 more from reporters than any great orator I have ever known. 
 Lest it should be thought that the speech I have put into his 
 mouth is literal, and he be responsible for, or judged by the 
 precise words and style of it, I state that it is a free transla- 
 tion, not, by an immeasurable distance, an accurate report. 
 The writer took no note whatever at the time, and did not 
 commence writing from memory for some days after the de- 
 bate. If I have fully embraced the thought, the scope, the 
 meaning of the speech, if I have represented him as employ- 
 ing no argument, or uttering no sentiment which he did not 
 or would not have employed or uttered in the connection in 
 which he spoke, I am satisfied Mr. Powell is more easily re- 
 ported, and I am sure I have not done' him injustice. In that 
 fine, surpassingly fine episode, of Mr. Crittenden's, of General 
 Washington and the Committee, I fear I have failed most and 
 erred most. There are portions of it which he did not speak. 
 In some instances I have ventured to translate his looks, 
 when he looked volumes perfectly intelligible to the crowd, 
 yet spoke never a word. In other instances my memory had 
 lost the words. The remains of his speech in my memory 
 lay there entombed, and petrified like the fossil bones of 
 geology ; and it required the aid of comparative anatomy to 
 bring out the entire skeleton perfect and complete. The 
 
302 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 reader will have no difficulty in making out the genus of the 
 noble animal I have endeavored to preserve, and will easily 
 detect those parts which are genuine remains from those which 
 a clumsy artist had added. If the supplied parts are suffi- 
 ciently in keeping to identify the whole frame, he is satisfied. 
 The translation, of course, does not approach the original in 
 grace and spirit. In those instances — and there are several in 
 the interview between the committee and General Washington 
 — when I undertook to interpret his countenance, and to write 
 what he looked, in addition to what he said, I feel that I have 
 elaborated some of the sentences into fustian, and covered 
 them with ambitious ornament — a literary offense, which he 
 never commits, and one which before the tribunal of his severe 
 and simple taste is never forgiven. With this explanation, he 
 will not as an orator be held responsible to the letter, and if 
 I have not misrepresented his meaning, or misstated his facts, 
 he will forgive false taste, and even the impudence of report- 
 ing him at all. I promised at the outset a sketch of Mr. 
 Benjamin Hardin. I design a full length portrait of that 
 gentleman, but not here ; his figure will spoil the piece ; he 
 has no business in such company. I will give him a separate 
 canvas, when he shall stand alone in his glory. Forgive the 
 garrulity of an old man. 
 
OI/D GUARD — NEW CONSTITUTION. 303 
 
 THE OLD GUARD-NEW CONSTITUTION. 
 3sro. I. 
 
 Edited by Mr. Maeshall, at Frankfort, Kentucky, in 1850. 
 
 The ■first number of the "Old Guard" was issued at Frankfort, Ky., on the 
 6th of February, 1850. The main object of the publication was to investi- 
 gate the New Constitution, and give to the public an analytic exposition 
 of its defects. That instrument had just been drafted and signed by the 
 members of the Conveniion.. At the ensuing election it was to be submit- 
 ted to the people of Kentucky for their adoption or rejection. Some of the 
 most talented men in the State arrayed themselves against it. Among 
 these was Mr. Marshall. As editor of the "Old Guard," he came into the 
 battle Champing like a war-steed, his whole armor on, impatient to meas- 
 ure strength with the most chivalrous veterans of the Opposition. The Old 
 Guard, with "up Guards and at them" for its motto, went into the strug- 
 gle gloriously and gallantly. Mr. Marshall, in a series of leading edito- 
 rials addressed "To the people of Kentucky," gave the proposed Constitution 
 a most thorough and searching analysis. To use one of his own expres- 
 sions, (applied to Mr. Wise in Congress,) he "struck at it root and branch; 
 he raked it — hull, mast and rigging." More than one experienced combat- 
 ant shrank from the keenness of his lance and the power of his saber- 
 stroke. The following are the letters referred to, published in their original 
 order. The first, or opening address, is a general examination of the body 
 of the instrument. In the succeeding articles, skilfully as a surgeon, he 
 applies his pen, keen as a dissecting knife, to the deformities of its parts. 
 
 In pursuance of the promise given in our prospectus, issued 
 some weeks since, the Old Guard commence to-day their ex- 
 amination of the plan of government submitted by the Con- 
 vention for your approval or rejection. Before we proceed 
 to that minute and detailed scrutiny of the particular parts of 
 the instrument, or begin that rigorous analysis, to which we 
 have pledged ourselves, we desire to take a general survey of 
 its outline and figure — to determine the outward form, dimen- 
 sions and proportions of the building, before we cross the 
 threshold, to examine its interior distribution, the arrange- 
 ment and relations of its various courts, passages, and apart- 
 
304 
 
 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 merits. We design to compare it first, as a whole, in its 
 general plan and features, with the old building, whose walls 
 and roof, still Stanch and stout, without leak or crack, have 
 sheltered you and yours in tolerable security from flood and 
 fire, and kept you sound and safe amid every storm which has 
 swept the political atmosphere during the last half century. 
 We mean, too, to compare it with itself, and assuming for a 
 moment, as just, the object at which the architects profess to 
 have aimed, and the plan and principle upon which they pro- 
 fess to have wrought, as wise and true, we will labor to trace 
 both, through the details of their work, to ascertain, if pos- 
 sible, whether the means they have employed be adapted to 
 the end they had in view, or conform to the plan and the 
 principle upon which they set out. It is for you that we write. 
 It is to you we address ourselves. It was professedly for your 
 superior convenience and greater safety, the new edifice was 
 constructed. The builders were appointed by yourselves. They 
 had full powers, ample credit, and the whole storehouse of 
 the past and present, thrown wide open, whence to select 
 and draw their materials. History has preserved full and ac- 
 curate drawings of the ancient structures. Philosophy has 
 plunged into the ruins of ancient civilization, gathered, from 
 the study of its dead relics, its forms, its peculiarities, its 
 genius, explored and unfolded the principles upon which States 
 mow past away were founded, and penetrated and unfolded the 
 causes of their rise and fall, their glory and their shame. 
 Modern times, so fruitful in examples of every kind, their own 
 country, their own State, not without its share of instruction, 
 lay full before them, not in the dim twilight of legend or tra- 
 dition, not to be traced through broken columns and crum- 
 bling ruins, and to be brought before the imagination by the 
 reconstructive energy of comparative anatomy, but full and 
 complete in every member, and bathed and basking in the 
 broad light of present history. Your workmen were not with- 
 out models. Committing to them a mighty task, you clothed 
 them with mighty powers. The trust was great, the discretion 
 large. They were empowered to examine the old edifice tho- 
 
OLD GUARD — NEW CONSTITUTION. 305 
 
 roughly, to decide whether it was radically defective, and unfit 
 for modern use, and the present size, taste and condition of 
 the family, or whether it would admit of slight alterations, or 
 only required repairs cheap and easy. They have rejected it 
 as no longer suited for your habitation ; they propose razing 
 it jfrom turret to foundation — from dome to cellar nothing suits 
 them. They have built again, or propose to build, and not 
 upon the same foundation. If they have agreed to use some 
 of the old materials, to work in a stone here, or a beam or 
 rafter there, they have preserved nothing of the character of 
 the old homestead — every thing is new, bran new, we believe, 
 in this world. One thing, however, they have done, for which 
 we thank them. They have submitted their model for your 
 revision, and the work of ruin, if achieved, must be by your 
 own hands. It is here, and now that we ask you to pause. 
 It is here, and now that, notwithstanding all the circumstances 
 which surround the question, notwithstanding this building 
 committee, this Convention, (that we may drop a figure per- 
 haps continued too long,) was called by a majority so over- 
 whelming, as to leave no doubt that a change in your political 
 organization was demanded by yourselves, still here and now, 
 we implore, we expect, that you will pause and ponder. 
 
 There is a wide difference, we apprehend, between the call 
 of the Convention and the acceptance of this Constitution^ 
 If indeed a distinct plan, either as to principle or detail, had 
 been in the first instance laid before you, and your delegates 
 had assembled fully instructed to carry it out, and they had 
 done so, then indeed the present submission had been mere 
 matter of form, opposition would have been fruitless, hopeless, 
 and we would never have written. It was this evident temper 
 of yours to introduce some change into your organic law, that 
 has inspired the Convention with such extraordinary boldness. 
 It is the same cause, which inspires with dread many, very 
 many, wise and good men, who regard the plan of the Con- 
 tention as the worst imaginable, and overawes their opposi- 
 tion. The people have decided say they, we must submit. The 
 people have not decided, say we. The Convention are not the 
 
306 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 •people. They have striven, to be sure, to reverse the natural 
 relations between themselves jj-nd their constituency. They 
 have sought to introduce a new principle, to wit, that the Con- 
 stitution can derive neither life nor authority from your sanc- 
 tion, nor does it necessarily fall by your condemnation. It is 
 from the Convention it must derive its living energy, its im- 
 perative character, its binding force. The submission to you, 
 in the language of a leading member of that body, is in the 
 nature of an interlocutory order out of chancery. Your de- 
 cision is in the nature of the report of a commissioner, a 
 report which binds not the sovereign Judge, which may be 
 reversed or sent back, which may or may not become the 
 foundation of the final decree. They alone are empowered to 
 make a Constitution say they, to alter or amend, or readopt 
 the old one, and this they can not delegate to you. The Con- 
 vention delegate power to the people ! Verily, verily, freemen 
 of Kentucky, we are likely to be involved in strange ques- 
 tions. This reasoning of theirs is with them not an abstrac- 
 tion. They have deduced from it a concrete idea, full of 
 meaning and terribly practical. 
 
 They have raised upon it a new structure of power, a po- 
 litical body and authority, hitherto unheard of in American 
 legislation. After they had finished their work, round and 
 complete in all its parts, approved it, so far as they were 
 concerned, and signed it, by means of this submission of it to 
 you, they have contrived to render their own existence per- 
 petual, or at least terminable only at their own will. We will 
 treat this branch of the subject more at length hereafter, and 
 shall invoke to it, in connection with other matters, your ear- 
 nest and undivided attention. 
 
 We have said that we designed to compare the leading 
 object, as avowed by the Convention, with the means they 
 have employed to effect it, and the principle upon which they 
 profess to have wrought, with the results produced. In the 
 first instance, we shall not argue the propriety of the object, 
 or contest the force of the principle. 
 
 The Convention and their admirers seem to be well aware 
 
OLD GUARD — NEW CONSTITUTION. 307 
 
 of tlie force of the old maxim,, that sometimes words are things. 
 They have christened themselves as the friends of "Constitu- 
 tional Reform." They are the pioneers , and the champions 
 of the progressive democracy. They have all confidence in 
 the mighty principle of self-government, and the absolute sove- 
 reignty of the people. They seek to extend through every 
 department of political administration, supreme or subordi- 
 nate, discretionary or ministerial, the popular and elective prin- 
 ciple. Though the trunk of aristocracy has been hewn away, 
 the roots of that detested tree still linger, they say, hidden in 
 the undersoil of our free institutions, still living, and ready, 
 under favorable circumstances, to shoot up with renewed vigor, 
 and fling its dark and blighting shadow o'er all the land. 
 They come to extend, to broaden, to make complete the power 
 of the people. The old idea of constitutional restraint and 
 limitation upon the power of both government and people, 
 coupled with the reasonable delay of changes in the organic 
 law, imposed fetters unworthy of the age, and derogatory to 
 the wisdom of the democoeacy. They sought to place the fun- 
 damental law itself nearer to the people, and more immedi- 
 ately within their reach. In these glorious days of experiment 
 and progress, it was insulting to the human understanding, and 
 implied distrust of the democratic principle, that any part of 
 the social polity should be put beyond the reach of amend- 
 ment even for an instant. Whatever progress may have been 
 made in other arts, or other departments of knowledge, how- 
 ever much human science may have extended itself over the 
 realms of nature, and human power grown along with it, in 
 the arts of demagogueism, there seems to have been neither ad- 
 vance, nor improvement, nor change. The same cringing ser- 
 vility, the same honeyed flattery, even to the phrases, which 
 marked the courtiers of the people in democratic States 
 twenty-five hundred years ago, distinguish them yet. The 
 fawning sycophants of power, the supple slaves of a master, 
 whose confidence they have ever sought to win, by soothing 
 his vanity and flattering his worst passions, they have paved 
 the way to their own elevation and to the ruin of States, by 
 
308 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 the same means and with the same materials, throughout the 
 ■whole period of human history, and will, to " the last syllable 
 of recorded time." 
 
 Aristotle said long ago, that a courtier in a monarchy, and 
 a demagogue in a republic, was made of the same stuflf — the 
 same animal placed in different situations. The one cringing 
 at the footstool of the throne, the other bowing into the very 
 dust of adulation, in the presence of the multitude, each seek- 
 ing to make power absolute and unlimited, wherever they 
 found it, whether in the crown or in the people, and each 
 alike the fatal enemy of human liberty, of law, and of the 
 wise restraints which reason and justice every where impose 
 upon human power. Had the Stagirite lived till our times, 
 however much he may have changed other branches of his 
 philosophy, modern experience would have sustained-him fully 
 in this political maxim. Communities of meh are subject to 
 the same passions and the same temptations with individuals. 
 They are liable to the same faults, and they are capable of the 
 same prudence and the same courage. As they display the 
 capacity s>f self-restraint, which is the true meaning of that 
 " pet phrase," self-government, as they exhibit the power of 
 studying and comprehending their own nature, and the nature 
 of the things which surround them, and the firmness to pursue 
 the rules deducible from both, they will be found to flourish 
 or to fail, just as individuals, by the same course and under 
 the operation of the same causes, are lifted to prosperity, or 
 overwhelmed in ruin. The spectacle now exhibiting in the 
 Commonwealth of Kentucky is the grandest which the moral 
 world affords. A whole people, not through representatives, 
 but in their own proper person, armed with absolute and irre- 
 sistible power, with no authority or magistracy, or law, to 
 compel or restrain them, save that curb alone which their 
 own sense of reason, and justice, and right may impose, a 
 voluntary obedience rendered to principles only made obliga- 
 tory by their truth and their importance — a whole people are 
 about to sit as a Convention, with original power to frame a 
 fundamental law henceforth to be binding upon all. It is in- 
 
OLD GUARD — NEW CONSTITUTION. 309 
 
 deed a grand spectacle, and at the same time a searching test 
 of the moral and intellectual qualities which fit men to govern 
 themselves. You approach this sublime task under very pe-* 
 culiar circumstances — circumstances artfully thrown in to ob- 
 scure the true questions before you, to darken and perplex 
 the judgment you may form. Elements will be strenuously 
 sought, to be mingled with the subject of your deliberations^ 
 which, in truth have nothing to do with it. The worst 
 passions of particular men, and the most dangerous of the 
 community will be appealed to in behalf of the new instrit- 
 ment. The clamor with which faction always assails^ and 
 sometimes deafens the public ear and maddens the public 
 mind, will peal its highest notes. Every prejudice will be 
 appealed to, every art, every stratagem employed. The great 
 heart of Kentucky needs all its firmness, the great mind all 
 its clearness, to carry her safe through the impending crisis> 
 Among other and serious difficulties thrown in your way, ia 
 the brief space allowed you by the terms of the Conventioni, 
 to examine maturely so great a work and to form your jiudg- 
 ment upon it. These champions of reform, these worshipers 
 of the people, after having consumed nearly three months, 
 although there were but an hundred in council, and they 
 together in one room, and after argument and discussion fill- 
 ing a volume of some 1200 pages in the formation of the instru- 
 ment, have allowed but a few weeks more of time, for nearly 
 a million of men scattered over a surface of 40,000 square 
 miles, to examine, deliberate and consult on the same work. 
 They have fixed too upon that precise season, when it is least 
 likely that the whole people can be drawn together, to hold 
 the election, These patriotic gentlemen, so regardful of 
 majorities, so careful to exclude the possible rule of a 
 minority, that they have prohibited the representatives of the 
 people, under the new government, from appropriating any 
 sum over one hundred dollars, unless a majority of the whole 
 number elected assent — who have required repeated majorities, 
 not of those who vote, but of the entire people through a 
 period of seven years, before their new form ©f government 
 
310 T. r.. MARSHALL. 
 
 can be touclied by the innovating finger of progressive experi- 
 ence. These same gentlemen have directed that a simple 
 'majority of the votes cast at a season so near, and so unpro- 
 pitious, and not a majority of the entire people, shall be 
 sufficient to rivet upon the whole body, a law, next thing to 
 impossible ever to be changed. These are among the difficul- 
 ties which surround you. 
 
 Having promised a comparison, first between the general 
 ficheme of the two instruments, we proceed to redeem our 
 pledge. Those who imagine that the Constitution of 1799, by 
 which "the Commonwealth of Kentucky has been governed 
 ever since, was framed by rude and ignorant hands, know 
 nothing of the matter. The men who formed that Conven- 
 tion will challenge a comparison with any who have appeared 
 in American affairs. The early History of Kentucky — her 
 separation from the State of Virginia — her firat Constitution 
 in 1792 — the causes and motives which led to the change in 
 1799 — her subsequent history down to the present time, are 
 matters into which an abstract philosopher might look with 
 interest, and emerge from the study with enlarged views of 
 human nature, and an increased admiration of human virtue. 
 The men who settled Kentucky first, and framed her early 
 institutions, were not savages. Society when established here, 
 was not in its infancy. Those who laid the foundations of 
 the first State on this side of the Apallachian mountains, the 
 foremost crest of that great wave of civilization, which has 
 since spread over the Mississippi valley, were matured in the 
 science of liberty. Fresh from the revolution, and reeking 
 and imbued with the mighty principles of the greatest event 
 recorded in the history of men, they understood well the 
 grounds upon which human right and human freedom accord- 
 ing, at least, to the genius of that age, were supposed to rest. 
 With them, government was not a mere matter of guess- 
 work, an affair of experiment, a business of empiricism and 
 quackery. They worked by rule — a rule deduced from ten 
 thousand experiments made before their time, the origin, 
 
OLD aUAED — NEW CONSTITUTION. 311 
 
 progress, and results of which had been thoroughly studied, 
 and were thoroughly understood. 
 
 Had their names perished, had they left no other monument 
 than the Constitution of Kentucky, subsequent inquirers would 
 have been at no loss to determine their genius and their char- 
 acter. We have said in our prospectus, that we were not 
 opposed to cautious refoi-ms in the Constitution. The changes 
 we contemplated, however, had reference to the original char- 
 acter of our government. They should have been adapted to 
 it, and designed not to reverse and destroy the groundwork 
 and principle of the institution, but to perfect and carry out 
 more fully the original plan. That principle and that plan, 
 though perhaps not thoroughly executed, were, in our judg- 
 ment, perfect. Our ancestors sought to raise a republic upon 
 a purely popular basis, and they did it. Averse to absolute 
 power in any form or in any hands — recognizing fully the 
 great body of the community sought to be governed as the 
 only source of government, and the thorough political equality 
 of each member of the State, they still felt the necessity of 
 imposing limitations, legal limitations, even upon a sovereignty 
 thus constituted. Here lay the difiSculty. This is the mighty 
 problem in political science, the solution of which had been 
 sought for centuries by the founders of States and systems, in 
 the halls of practical legislation and in the schools of phi- 
 losophy, and sought in vain. The founders of the American 
 Constitution hoped they had found it. Universal suffrage, 
 frequent and direct elections by the people, a prompt responsi- 
 bility upon the part of the representatives to their constitu- 
 ency, seem to be ample guarantees, they are, at least, the 
 utmost which the wit of men has been competent to devise 
 against the violation, or at least the continued violation of 
 the public will, in the exercise of that great mass of politi- 
 cal authority included under the^ idea of the legislative 
 power. But that public will itself, may become perverted. 
 Quis custodiei ipsos custbdes — who shall keep the keepers — 
 who shall guard the guardians. We are in the habit of 
 speaking of the people as an unit, of the right and the 
 
312 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 sovereignty and the will of the people as though it were a 
 single individual, whose action, beginning and terminating in, 
 himself, operating upon no person or interest save his own, 
 with its results confined to himself; the most unrestrained 
 power of will may be accorded to a being thus isolated, 
 without danger or cause of complaint to any other right, 
 interest, person, or thing in the universe. This, however, we 
 apprehend, to be a very mistaken view of the subject, and 
 leads to great mistakes in reasoning upon government. 
 Society, or the people if you please, is composed of a vast 
 number of distinct individuals, very unequal in strength, 
 faculties, fortune, means of influence, and all the natural or 
 acquired instruments of defense against wrong, oppression or 
 violence. It is a great co-partnership among a multitude of 
 members with very unequal stakes in the firm. This in- 
 equality of interests and condition, rooted in the nature of 
 things, an essential and unavoidable condition of the institu- 
 tion of property, and of the civilized state, is the groundwork 
 and the cause of the jealousies and the divisions which exist 
 in every community of men; it is the parent of faction in 
 free States; it is the hidden fire, the smoldering volcano 
 which, however deeply buried, lurks in the bosom of all socie- 
 ties, even to the most despotic in their form, and ever and anon 
 breaks forth to sweep before the burning terrors of its path 
 all the monuments of human power, art and civilization. It 
 would involve us too deeply in the discussion of principles, 
 which, to many of you, we fear, will appear too abstract for 
 an address to the people, to show that this social inequality 
 of condition is the legitimate offspring of equality, the natu- 
 ral equality of right. Were not each man rendered secure in 
 his acquisition, with the power of transmitting them to his 
 ofi"spring, industry would cease, and men relapse into barba- 
 rism. This social inequality has a further consequence. It 
 naturally and at once divides mankind by its own line into 
 two great classes, the rich and the poor; those who in the 
 enjoyment of previous accumulations,, wield the capital which 
 stimulates, employs and rewards labor, and the great and 
 
OliD GUABD — NEW CONSTITUTION. 313 
 
 perpetually increasing class of those who win from nature by 
 the sweat of their brow the means of subsistence. To pre- 
 serve each class from the oppression or injury of the other, 
 and each individual from both, or all combined, to protect 
 property on the one hand and personal liberty to the fullest 
 extent upon the other, to reconcile perfect equality of right, 
 with vast inequality of strength, intellect and wealth among 
 individuals, is the rational end of all government, the great 
 philosophic and humane object of all political arrangement. 
 It is an end oftener sought than found. It were easy for us 
 to demonstrate, that this inequality in human condition, this 
 great division of mankind to which we have referred, is 
 founded in the order of nature, and therefore unavoidable; 
 but we feel assured that those who read us, will appreciate 
 fully the truth and the force of the principle without farther 
 illustration. Carefully observed, it will be found to explain 
 all the political phenomena exhibited in history; it is the 
 secret force which has caused all the social revolutions that 
 are recorded. The operation and the progress of th& prin- 
 ciple, has originated, modified, changed and finally overthrown 
 every form of polity whose history is complete. It is more 
 rapid, or slower in its operation and its results, but it never 
 slumbers, it is an incessant agent in human affairs. The 
 management of it, the reconciliation of that strange system 
 of antagonism and hostilities upon which society, like the uni- 
 verse and every organized thing in it, seems to be built, with 
 order, and harmony, and freedom in the parts, is the grand 
 desideratum, the mighty problem, the attainment and solution 
 of which requires the sublimest efforts of human genius. 
 
 "We glance at these principles now. They will be of prime 
 importance in settling the difference between the Convention 
 of 1799, and the Constitutional, reformers of 1849, in relation 
 to the constitution of the Judiciary. We design to probe that 
 question to the very bottom, but must defer its thorough 
 examination to another number. Although we have shown 
 that society is not an unit, but it is composed of various dis- 
 tinct individuals, with various and separate and often clashing 
 
314 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 interests, and with separate and absolute rights, which ought 
 to be inviolable even by the whole power of the State, still, in 
 some respects and for some purposes, it must be regarded as 
 a whole and one. There are matters common to all. In rela- 
 tion to these, in the guidance of its public policy in the 
 management of its public affairs, the community, upon the 
 principle of self-government, is supreme. A very slight 
 examination of the two forms of government now submitted 
 to you, will satisfy you that the old one manifests infinitely 
 more confidence in the popular and elective principle than the 
 new. The restraints put upon the legislative power of the 
 people, through their representatives in the old Constitution, 
 are only such as to protect the absolute rights of individuals, 
 aid the rights of private property from infraction or viola- 
 tion by the government. It leaves the people, through their 
 Legislature, the amplest discretion, and the fullest power over 
 matters of public policy, finance, revenue, internal improve- 
 ment, the organization of the courts inferior to the supreme, 
 the superintendence of the administration of justice, every 
 thing indeed, of a public and common character. It secured 
 prompt responsibility by annual elections, and kept alive and 
 vigilant and for ever active, the popular principle, by this call 
 for the frequent exertion of the popular power in the choice 
 of one branch of the legislature — a circumstance, in our 
 judgment, of vast importance. The new Constitution provides 
 for biennial elections, and has almost annihilated the legisla- 
 tive power. Biennial officers, clothed with legislative powers, 
 and the number of days they are to sit, prescribed in the 
 fundamental law, seems to be no great advance of the demo- 
 cratic principle from 1799. They have cut down the Execu- 
 tive till he is a mere cipher in the Constitution. It would 
 seem from the manner in which the Convention have handled 
 those branches of the government heretofore elective, that 
 they considered representative government as a failure, and 
 that they had no confidence whatever in the elective principle. 
 Indeed, all the abuses complained of seem to have been com- 
 mitted by the representatives of the people. Those branches 
 
OLD GUARD — NEW CONSTITUTION. 315 
 
 of the government heretofore elective, are they whose powers 
 have been most curtailed, and conduct most severely arraigned. 
 It is a strange compliment to the representatives of the peo- 
 ple, and through them to the capacity of the people to choose 
 their representatives to put a constitutional veto upon any 
 appropriation of public money over an hundred dollars. We 
 mean by a constitutional veto, such a veto as the Executive 
 now wields, to-wit, the requisition of a majority of the whole 
 number elected to pass a law. They have made the judges 
 and clerks elective by the people, but they have shown, in 
 both instances, that they have no confidence in their capacity 
 to choose either. They send the people to the courts for a 
 certificate of the qualifications of a clerk, thereby demonstrat- 
 ing their sense of the truth, that the courts who have now 
 the appointment of clerks are not only the best, but the. only 
 proper judges of the necessary qualifications. They give to 
 the people the election of judges, but they limit their choice 
 to a particular profession, thereby, again demonstrating that 
 in their sense the people whom they flatter so much, if left 
 free upon the subject, would wander wide of the track. It 
 would be a strange thing if the Constitution required that the 
 President of the United States should get a certificate of his 
 learning and qualifications from some college before the peo- 
 ple could vote for him. Under the old Constitution, when a 
 m;an Became a citizen of Kentucky, he carried his franchise 
 with him wherever he went. A residence of an tour, a 
 minute, in any county, gave him the right to vote. He was 
 a Kentuckian, and wherever he resided in the State, by virtue 
 of his citizenship, he had a voice in selecting those who were 
 to govern him! By the new Constitution, each county is to 
 be laid off into precincts, and the voter must have resided 
 within the precinct sixty days next preceding the election, to 
 be entitled to a vote, and can not vote out of his precinct. 
 He may have been born in the county, resided in it from 
 birth, be perfectly known to the judges of the election, still, 
 unless he has been a citizen of the precinct sixty days he is 
 disfranchised. Thousands in Kentucky will be disfranchised 
 
316 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 by the operation of this rule, and thousands of the laboring 
 class — the very class for whom our patriots profess most 
 regard. They have dismembered Kentucky, broken it into a 
 number of petty municipalities, and made the right of citizen- 
 ship local instead of general. They have required a new 
 qualifica|;ion, and abridged, most seriously, the former right. 
 They have made the Judiciary elective by the people, yet in 
 the arrangement of the supreme court, they have shown that 
 they have no confidence in the elective principle. They have 
 directed the State to be divided into four districts, and each 
 district to choose a judge, so that of a court composed of 
 four judges, no man in Kentucky will vote for more than 
 one. It is not a State court chosen by the people of Ken- 
 tucky, each man voting for the whole court, but a number of 
 district ofiScers representing fractions of the community. 
 Take each separate voter in the State, and of a court which 
 is said to be elected by the people, there will be three in the 
 choice of whom he has had no voice. And the reason 
 assigned for this arrangement evinces the most profound dis- 
 trust of the elective feature in the judiciary. 
 
 They say the pernicious influence of party ties and personal 
 connections between the judge and the friends who elect 
 him is thus avoided. That whenever a cause comes up, no 
 matter from what district, three of the court will be indepen- 
 dent of the parties, and can render a judgment, without the 
 influences which the argument admits will operate upon the 
 mind of the judge elected by the district whence the cause 
 comes. Thus, in the constitution of the supreme court, the 
 Convention themselves admit the mischief of their own princi- 
 ples, and have striven to paralyze it. In the constitution of 
 the circuit courts, however, they abandon altogether the 
 ground upon which they have placed the court of appeals, 
 and give the most full and sweeping effect to the evils there 
 sought to be parried. The circuit judges are to preside in 
 the districts where they are chosen. They must reside there 
 also. Reeking from an electioneering conflict, the judge 
 
OLD aUAKD — NEW CONSTITUTION. 317 
 
 ascends tie tribunal to administer justice among the very 
 persons who have just been engaged in a hot struggle for and 
 against him. His ardent friends on one side of him, his 
 bitter enemies on the other. Had the Convention followed 
 out the principle upon which they seem to have organized the 
 appellate court, they would have directed the circuit judges 
 to have been chosen by one district, and to have presided in 
 another. 
 
 Retrenchment of expenditure and a more economical 
 government were among the leading objects of the reformers. 
 They have created four hundred new officers, three judges of 
 the court of probate, and one lieutenant circuit judge foi* 
 each county in the State. Whether justices of the peace are 
 to form a part of the new county court for all purposes, or 
 only in the court of claims, and for adjusting the county 
 levy, and making appropriations, we have been utterly unable 
 to determine from the language of the instrument. The 
 expense of this machinery, if it be contemplated to obtain 
 officers of competent ability, will be very great. 
 
 One of the leading objections urged by the "reform party" 
 against the old Constitution, was the difficulty of changing 
 or amending it. It was too remote from the people. The 
 plan of calling a Convention by successive votes of the people, 
 and submitting the whole instrument for revision, was too 
 slow. As experience might suggest particular defects, they 
 professed, as one of their most prominent principles, the 
 purpose to place the fundamental charter within easy reach 
 by specific clauses, without hazarding the entire scheme of 
 government. This was the text. The commentary is, that 
 the time within which the people can reach the instrument, 
 the mode remaining the same, is exactly doubled. These 
 votaries of progress march at a quick step to the point of 
 improvement which limits their own genius, and, beyond this, 
 forbid the advance or the return of the human understanding 
 for ever. The scheme of government they propose is not an 
 experiment to be abandoned, if it should prove false or hurt- 
 
318 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 ful, but an immutable law, a fixture, an iron bed upon which 
 society is to be stretched and bound for ever, without the 
 power of turning. 
 
 Professing unlimited confidence in the democratic principles, 
 and claiming to have extended popular power, they have, in 
 thei^ action, insulted representative government, declared the 
 legislative branch, emanating from the very bosom of the 
 people, as unworthy of trust or confidence, and stabbed popu- 
 lar sovereignty in its very heart. 
 
 You are so conscious of your strength, you are in the full 
 enjoyment of a liberty so perfect, that you will be likely to 
 regard with contempt, or receive with ridicule, the pretensions 
 of an usurping assembly, which among a people differently 
 situated, might well awaken emotions both of rage and fear. 
 They have assumed, distinctly, the power to continue their 
 own existence indefinitely. They have exerted the power over 
 the public purse, and asserted their complete independence of 
 the existing government and laws upon the vital matter of 
 the appropriation of money. They have laid down the pro- 
 position clearly, that your sanction or refusal of their work 
 amounts to nothing. That they, not you, are the sovereigns. 
 They have decided, uiider these circumstances, and upon these 
 principles, to reassemble, with powers not conferred by your 
 decision, whatever it may be, but fresh and ample to build up 
 or pull down as they were in October. They have decided 
 that the legislative branch of the government expires in June, 
 should they determine upon adopting this Constitution. They 
 will be here in existence, without other limit to their term or 
 powers than they may choose to impose; and for two months, 
 Kentucky will be without any other legislative government 
 than that of this single assembly, without a Senate, without 
 any law defining their powers, or limiting their existence. 
 They have referred the Constitution to you, not as the princi- 
 pal, the sovereign, the master, whose agents and servants they 
 are, but have condescended to consult with you, to take your 
 opinion, reserving to themselves the sole right and power of 
 entering up the final decree according to their own supreme 
 
OLD GUARD — NEW CONSTITUTION'. 319 
 
 discretion. As they did not intend the judgment of the people 
 to be final and decisive, it was well enough, perhaps, certainly 
 of a piece with the rest, that they should not have allowed 
 you time for examination and reflection, nor required the voice 
 of a majority of the whole people, in sanction of an act so 
 solemn, so important, so enduring. The advocates, par excel- 
 lence, of democratic progress, of speedy and continued reforms 
 in government, professing the most profound and unlimited 
 confidence in the masses, they have imposed a law, around 
 which they have thrown an impossibility of change. 
 
 In our opening address, our remarks are designed to be 
 general. In future numbers we will examine more minutely 
 the particular' provisions of the Constitution, and in our next 
 will commenbe the examination of the principle upon which 
 the Convention have constructed our judicial system. Their 
 whole scheme, in our judgment, in relation to this branch of 
 government, is founded in a great and fatal misconception of 
 the nature and object of the judicial magistracy. The subject 
 is one of such incalculable importance that we have determined 
 to consider it alone, and apart from any other. We will* de- 
 vote a considerable portion of our next number to the discus- 
 sion of the elective principle, when applied to the judiciary, 
 and compare the system proposed to you, with what has been 
 heretofore held, in Kentucky, the true philosophy. 
 
 21 
 
320 T. r. MAESHALL. 
 
 THE OLD GUARD-JUDICIARY. 
 
 ITO. II. 
 
 x'lK succeeding numbers of this series of leaders examine the Constitution 
 more in detail. On the judiciary they are quite elaborate. These articles 
 evince the closest powers of reasoning, perception vigorous and acute, and 
 a mind every way clear, compact, and rigidly analytic. Junius-like, he 
 wielded his pen against power, and dropped with every stroke a pearl of 
 his genius. 
 
 In our opening address to you, we promised, in the present 
 number of the Old Guard, to examine the scheme of the Con- 
 vention in relation to the Judiciary. The elective principle, 
 as applied by them to this branch of magistracy, we have 
 stated to be founded in a great and fatal misconception of the 
 nature and object of the institution. We again invoke your 
 attention, while we proceed in the discussion of the most im- 
 portant and interesting branch of the whole subject submitted 
 to you. We have, in our first number, endeavored, and we 
 think with success^ to show, from a general view of the new 
 Instrument, that the framers had themselves no sort of confi- 
 dence in the elective principle, the extension of which they 
 profess to have been their leading object. We admit here, 
 however, that their distrust does not demonstrate the badness 
 of the principle. They may themselves have had no confidence 
 in the rule by which they wrought, and yet the rule be sound. 
 We have endeavored, and we think with the most perfect 
 success, to show that the Convention have trampled upon the 
 existing law — law which, while it continues to subsiot, binds us 
 all, the Convention and yourselves — that they have inverted 
 the just and natural relations which subsist between the people 
 and themselves, and transferred, or endeavored to transfer to 
 their own hands, the most unlimited sovereignty of which we 
 can conceive. And yet we admit, that all this may be true, 
 and still the instrument of government they have proposed 
 may be worthy of adoption. It must be examined and tried 
 
OLD GUAED — JUDICIARY. 321 
 
 by itself, •without reference to the motives, conduct, or present 
 position of the Convention itself. We seek not to excite or 
 enlist any prejudice or passion of yours, either past or present, 
 against the instrument. It is to your reason, your clear, cold, 
 unclouded, and we hope determined reason, operating upon and 
 strengthened by your own rich and ample experience, that we 
 appeal, and shall continue to appeal. The principles from 
 which we shall reason, and to which we shall constantly refer 
 throughout the entire course of our argument, we know to have 
 been once cherished and held sacred by you, as so many fun- 
 damental and indisputable truths, interwoven with, and run- 
 ning through the whole texture of your opinions, planted firm 
 and fast in the deep soil of your moral and political ideas, as 
 they are rooted and fixed in the eternal nature of things. 
 
 We have said that the great problem in government was 
 to reconcile, in one society, perfect equality of personal and 
 political rights, with vast inequalities between individuals, in 
 wealth, strength, intellect, and all the means of influence and 
 of power. We have said that it was the institution of prop- 
 erty, and the consequent rise and growth of industry which 
 distinguishes the civilized from the barbarous condition of 
 mankind. And that the just and humane aim of all political 
 arrangement, is to protect property on the one side, and per- 
 sonal liberty to its fullest extent upon the other. Justice and 
 peace are the legitimate ends of government among men. Is 
 it, can it be necessary for us to argue in proof of the propo- 
 sition, that the whole scheme of American legislation, the 
 radical, fundamental, all-pervading American idea, from the 
 revolution down, has been, that the more perfect security of 
 individuals, is the great end of all political association? And 
 that liberty, individual liberty, can only be found in a limited 
 government? Is it, can it be necessary for us, at this time 
 of day in Kentucky, to show that absolute power, whether in 
 the hands of one, the many or the few, is equally despotic, 
 and inconsistent with all American ideas of freedom ? Is it, 
 can it be necessary for us, here and now, Kentuckians our- 
 selves, and in the midst of Kentuckians, to explain the mean- 
 
322 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 ing of constitutional government? We had hoped not. But 
 in the strange confusion of ideas, the utter revolution of sys- 
 tem and opinion with which we are surrounded and threatened, 
 we feel the necessity of recurring to original principles, to re- 
 explore, explain, and establish upon the everlasting foundations 
 of immutable truth, the grounds of the faith of our ancestors. 
 In the general, we abhor abstractions. Government is a prac- 
 tical afiFair. It has to do with men in their business, their 
 homes, their every-day pursuits. Its operation and its results, 
 bearing directly upon the rights, the interests, the happiness 
 of men, are eminently practical. Yet when the whole frame 
 and principle of social organization, when the source and the 
 object of power, the end and the means of political authority 
 are involved in the question, we feel our utter inability to dis- 
 cuss it without mounting to the original and apparently remote 
 causes of the social Union, the rational and philosophic foun- 
 tains of all human authority over human beings. 
 
 In the arrangement of the judicial power, the Constitution 
 of 1799 directs, that it shall be vested in one supreme court, 
 and in such inferior courts as the General Assembly may, fi-om 
 time to time, erect and establish. The judges of these courts 
 shall be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice 
 and consent of the senate. They shall hold their ofBces during 
 good behavior, or in the Latin of the English law, dum bene 
 se gesserint — with the proviso, that the governor shall remove 
 any of them, on the address of two-thirds of each branch of 
 the General Assembly. They are liable for malfeasance, to be 
 impeached by the House of Representatives, and for the trial 
 of charges urged by that body, the Senate is constituted the 
 court. The judges shall receive an adequate compensation for 
 their services, at stated times, to be fixed by law. This is the 
 brief and general outline of the judicial constitution, as traced 
 by the masterly hands of the patriots of 1799. Let us ex- 
 amine the end they had in view, and ascertain first whether 
 that end was wise and just. Let us afterward study, and ob- 
 serve how far the means they employed are naturally calcu- 
 lated and adapted to produce the results they sought. Let us 
 
OLD GUARD— JUDICIAEY. 323 
 
 further look back upon our own domestic history, and see how 
 far the system, in its practical workings, has actually produced 
 those results. And lastly, let us examine and compare the 
 principle, the end, the object of the arrangement under the 
 new Constitution with the old. The probable results of the 
 change, designed, can be ascertained, or conjectured rather, 
 only by reasoning. We have no experience, no history to 
 guide us in relation to it. With us, it is sheer experiment, 
 and in direct opposition, ais we will show, to the ideas and 
 principles upon which our institutions have heretofore reposed, 
 as on a foundation. 
 
 It is evident at a glance that the aim, the end of the framers 
 of the old Constitution, was to render the Judiciary indepen- 
 dent. It was to place this class of magistrates in such a posi- 
 tion, in relation to every other, that they could approach the 
 discharge of their peculiar functions, unawed by any other 
 power, and uncontrolled by any other authority in the State. 
 They did not leave the Judiciary irresponsible. They are made 
 responsible, not to party, not to passion. They are not left 
 in a condition to be swept away at the arbitrai-y discretion of 
 the executive, to be overwhelmed by heated and factious ma- 
 jorities in the General Assembly, impatient of constitutional 
 restraint, and chafing under the curb of a law designed to re- 
 strain and to regufate their will, nor finally to be removed at 
 the mere pleasure of the sovereign constituent body — the people 
 themselves. But they are made responsible, for malfeasance, 
 misfeasance, neglect or violation of the high duties imposed 
 upon them, responsible, in the most solemn form of trial, before 
 that high constitutional court composed of the representatives 
 of the people, and liable there to be removed and degraded, 
 but Upon proof and conviction. 
 
 Whether in a free government, resting on a purely popular 
 basis, with powers defined and limited in a written Constitu- 
 tion, the judicial department ought to be independent — whether 
 the appointment of the judges in the mode prescribed by our 
 fundamental law, and the tenure of office there fixed, be a vio- 
 lation of the republican principle and an infraction of popular 
 
324 
 
 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 rights under it- — wliether the means selected by the founders 
 of our particular Constitution to secure the independence of 
 the Judiciary be the only, or the best means, by which that 
 end can be attained — ■whether the appointing power may not 
 be transferred to the people, and the elective principle may 
 not be applied to the Judiciary, and under what modification, 
 and whether the tenure of judicial office may not be limited, 
 and how, without impairing that independence of the courts, 
 heretofore held so important, are the questions we mean to 
 discuss. 
 
 What then is the meaning of an iudependent judiciary? 
 What is the object for which, and the means through which it 
 is -to be attained ? What are the elements in this great idea, 
 so deeply graven in the mind, so concentrated in the heart of 
 the early American legislators? They should have known 
 what despotism meant — they had felt it, they had looked it 
 full in the face, and studied well its features and its counte- 
 nance — they had grappled with it in the struggle of life and 
 death — they had brought it to the earth, and with armed heel 
 upon its neck, had trampled, as they supposed, the last spark 
 of life from the prostrate trunk. They should have known 
 what a republic meant, and something of the means by which 
 liberty was to be won and secured. They had won their own, 
 and thought they had secured it, in the establishment of a 
 government which is the admiration of the world. They turned 
 to an independent Judiciary as the basis of their system, with- 
 out which constitutional limitations upon power, were an idle 
 effort, to bind the limbs of a giant, or restrain his strength 
 with bands of paper. What is this master idea, of the wise 
 and brave, and good, who have thought and struggled for lib- 
 erty every where ? Why is it that in those countries where 
 freedom is best understood and most thoroughly enjoyed, pa- 
 triots and sages have united in the belief, that of all the con- 
 trivances of human wisdom, this invention of an independent 
 judiciary affords the surest guaranty to a limited constitution, 
 and the amplest safeguard to personal liberty and the rights 
 of individuals ? Let us examine the term — ^let us measure the 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 325 
 
 idea. We have sought for ourselves, laboriously, painfully, 
 through long years of thought, with such means of information 
 as lay within our reach, and the application of the whole of 
 the' limited faculties with which heaven may have endowed us, 
 with candor and with caution, to penetrate thoroughly the idea 
 we seek to analyze — to grasp it in its whole dimensions, and 
 all its mighty meaning. We ask you now to go along with 
 us patiently, while we endeavor to unfold the views, and to 
 state the great general truths upon which our reasoning is 
 founded, and from which we deduce our theory of liberty, our 
 idea of a republic. 
 
 There are certain elementary principles in government 
 which are admitted by both the parties to this discussion — 
 they may be assumed as established and indisputable — they are 
 to be stated, not proven, in the argument. Among these is the 
 axiom, that the concentration of all powers known to govern- 
 ment, legislative, executive and judicial in one depository, no 
 matter whether it be a single person, a select number, or a 
 simple majority of numbers told by the head, constitutes abso- 
 lute, instead of limited government, and is inconsistent with 
 the idea of liberty and safety. Hence arises the necessity for 
 distributing the political authority of the State into different 
 departments, of dividing it among different branches of magis- 
 tracy in such manner as to make them operate as checks 
 upon each other. 
 
 We can not conceive of any political authority that may not 
 be classed under one or another of the three great heads, to 
 which we have referred, and into which the entire mass has 
 been divided in our Constitution. It is very easy to perceive, 
 and in this country will be readily admitted, that the power to 
 make the law, to interpret its meaning, and to carry it into 
 effect, if united in a single person, constitutes despotism, and 
 subjects the society, so situated, to the absolute will of that 
 person. The same powers united in a small number of per- 
 sons, becomes equally absolute, equally subjects the residue of 
 the society to the unrestrained will of a fraction of the com- 
 munity and constitutes an oligarchy— a worse form of absolute 
 
326 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 government, in our judgment, than the other. A worse form, 
 because that responsibility which at last attaches to every 
 form of power, in the latter case, is divided among a number 
 of individuals and is thereby weakened. The abuses and the 
 oppresssions, the wrongs and injustice practiced under it, 
 can not be brought home to any single individual. Men have 
 ever been found, and will ever be found to practice enormities 
 when associated together, and shielded by this association 
 from direct and single and individual responsibility, which no 
 one man would have dared, if exposed singly to the full glare 
 of the public eye, the full weight of the public indignation. 
 These simple forms of government — an unlimited monarchy, 
 which is a despotism — an unlimited aristocracy, which is an 
 oligarchy — will find no champion here — they are universally 
 rejected with us as loathsome and intolerable to human 
 thought. But shall we, the inheritors and votaries of consti- 
 tutional liberty, pause here in our detestation of absolutism ? 
 Is there not another form of unlimited government, equally 
 formidable to the rights of human nature properly under- 
 stood? Suppose in any community of men all these powers 
 united and wielded by a simple majority of that community— 
 with no rule but, the, will of that majority for the hour — is it 
 not obvious, that the remaining individuals of a community, 
 so situated, the minor and weaker portion of it, is subject to a 
 dominion absolute, unrestrained, irresistible? This is the des- 
 potism of mere numbers — this is not a republic, but a simple 
 democracy — and, according to human experience, the most 
 terrible form of oppression, under which one portion of man- 
 kind have ever, been subjected to the lawless and unrestrained 
 will of the other. 
 
 Had we time now to cite historical examples, we could 
 easily show you, that of all the experiments yet made in 
 social polity, that of simple democracy has proved, with- 
 out a solitary exception, the most disastrous failure. The 
 efforts to preserve civilization and liberty — to protect persons 
 and property — to keep a great number of individuals, unequal 
 in strength, fortune, intellect, all the natural instruments of 
 
OLD GUARB — JUDICIAL, 327 
 
 power — tbe rich, the educated, the proud, bound together 
 upon a principle of equality, with the poor, the ignorant, the 
 laborious — under a system which gave to a simple majority of 
 numbers absolute power in the management of all that relates 
 to social affairs — such efforts, and they have been frequent, 
 exhibit the most awful lessons in history for the instruction 
 and the warning of mankind. 
 
 We claim "to be republican thoroughly. "We assert and 
 maintain the right of communities of men to rule themselves; 
 but we will for ever assert and maintain their obligation to rule 
 themselves according to the principles of a justice eternal in 
 its nature, principles not alterable by the voice of majorities 
 or minorities, a justice ascertainable, to be sure, by reason — 
 but having its origin and terminus in the bosom of God — it 
 is for ever obligatory in reason and in morals upon the whole 
 human race. 
 
 We have already shown that absolutism in government is 
 not an avowed doctrine, as yet, of any party in Kentucky. 
 That, to avoid the concentration of power destructive to free- 
 dom and subversive of the great ends of the social -union, the 
 mass of political authority entering necessarily into the idea 
 of government, has been broken and divided, by all our 
 schemes, into three great departments', the Executive, the 
 Legislative, and the Judicial. We can not now review, even 
 cursorily, the various plans resorted to in other countries, to 
 balance the antagonistic principles, which we have shown natu- 
 rally and necessarily to exist in the bosom of every commu- 
 nity of men where property is established — and their efforts 
 from that balance to attain a tranquil equilibrium in society, 
 in which the right of each class might be established, and by 
 which the peace of the whole might be secured. We must 
 hasten briefly to state the leading principles upon which our 
 own systems have been framed. 
 
 Our fathers rejected the hereditary principle altogether. 
 They refused to recognize monarchy as a necessary and inde- 
 pendent element in their political system. They refused to 
 give to hereditary property a separate, and permanent, and 
 
328 T. F. MAESHALIi. 
 
 independent weight in the constitution of the State — a sepa- 
 rate and independent voice in the passage of the laws which 
 are to bind the whole community. They struck out of their 
 scheme the idea of an aristocratic body, in the shape of a 
 hereditary Senate. Throwing the community into one great 
 mass, without distinction of classes, without rank or privilege, 
 we have carried the representative principle throughout the 
 executive and legislative branches of government. They 
 established the democratic principle as the only power known 
 to our institutions. But they did not design even that to be 
 absolute. They sought to limit it— not by a king sustained 
 by a house of peers, a body of hereditary nobles, a bench 
 of bishops — but by a fundamental and written law, embodying 
 the great and eternal principles of private right and justice, 
 established by authority of that very democratic power, and 
 for the very purpose of imposing limitations upon itself. This 
 fundamental law they placed in the keeping, and made sub- 
 ject to the interpretation of an unarmed and powerless magis- 
 tracy^^a body of men without purse or sword, army, navy, or 
 revenue ; without either force or will ; with no power but to 
 decide upon laws established by others; no discretion, no 
 faculty, no function but judgment. That same democratic 
 power has sought heretofore to lift this body of magistracy 
 above the reach, and place them out of fear of those other 
 elements, which they are designed to curb and restrain. This 
 is the outline of constitutional government sustained by an 
 independent judiciary. It is the system of our fathers. It is 
 the system which we will endeavor to show, that you are now 
 called on to abandon. 
 
 We have already given you the outline of the judicial 
 system, as established by the new Constitution; and if we 
 had not, we make no doubt you have examined and are 
 acquainted with its leading features. In the discussion of the 
 elective principle as applied to the Judiciary, in the particular 
 mode in which the Convention have applied it, it is in refer- 
 ence to its bearing upon their independence, that we wish 
 particularly to draw your attention. We can not take a step 
 
OLD GUARD — ^JTJDICIAEY. 329 
 
 in this inquiry without carefully considering, in the first place, 
 the difference in the politfcal functions, the nature of the 
 duties to be discharged, by the legislative and judicial depart- 
 ments of government. The Legislature represents the collec- 
 tive ■will, and wields the collective force of the community, 
 expressed through a majority of its members. It is the com- 
 munity acting through agents of its own appointment, in the 
 direction of its public affairs, the guidance of its public policy. 
 It is like an individual managing his own estate, directing the 
 investment of his funds, the cultivation of his lands, indeed 
 exercising the fullest control over his own property, through 
 his agent or attorney. Individuals have the right of self-gov- 
 ernment within fixed limits, in an equal degree with commu- 
 nities. Indeed it was to secure this right that communities 
 were formed. In both cases, the agent of the individual or 
 the representative of the community, is bound to obey and to 
 execute the will of the principal in the one case, of the con- 
 stituent in the other. But suppose the individual has a dis- 
 pute with some other person, in relation to some right or 
 property claimed by both. It becomes necessary to save the 
 peace, and to adjust the question, to appoint an arbiter, and 
 to appeal to a law binding upon both. Can it be conceived 
 that this arbiter represents either of these parties, that he is 
 the agent of either of them, bound to obey the instructions of 
 either or both? Is it not at once perceived that he represents 
 a fixed law above them both, which he is to apply to the case, 
 and that the nature of his ofiice, and the ends of justice re- 
 quire that he should be independent of them both, fearless of 
 them both, and responsible to neither. No man shall be judge 
 in his own cause, is the maxim of eternal justice. No man 
 shall appoint a judge responsible to and dependent upon him- 
 self, to settle his controversies, is a principle equally obvious. 
 There are some things common to all, public, appertaining 
 solely to the will of the community, and under their absolute 
 control. These are to be managed, regulated and controlled 
 by agents whose duty it is to represent their will, their 
 reason, nay, even their passions. To secure their obedience, 
 
330 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 and to establish the supremacy, of the public will in public 
 affairs, it has been found necessary that these agents should 
 be chosen, and at short intervals, by the people themselves. 
 This is legislation, representative legislation, the only safe 
 basis of political liberty, by which we mean the right of the 
 community to govern itself in relation to its general affairs. 
 But there are things not common to all. There are personal 
 and private rights, involving individual liberty and indi- 
 vidual property, subject to invasion by the community, or 
 by other individuals. These are protected by the Constitu- 
 tion of the State, and by a system of fixed laws, defining 
 those rights and appointing the remedies by which they are 
 to be preserved and guarded even against the combined force 
 of the whole community. This is civil liberty. The Legisla- 
 ture represent the community, reflect their will, obey their 
 mandate. The judiciary represent the law, the fixed inflexible 
 law, giving to each man the same weight, the same measure. 
 The nature of their office requires that so far from consulting 
 the will or obeying the instructions of any man or any num- 
 ber of men, they should have neither will nor discretion of 
 their own. It is their duty to study a rule, and to apply it 
 with inflexible and unswerving rigor, to weak and strong, to 
 rich and poor^ to the powerful and the defenseless. This is 
 evidently the nature of their office, the character of their 
 duties. Should they not be independent? Is it not clear 
 that there is nothing representative in their character or func- 
 tions? Is it not demonstrable; that so far from being sub- 
 jected to the will of either government or people, they are the 
 agents of a law intended to protect individuals against that 
 very will, against any will or any force in the universe? 
 
 The importance of an independent judiciary, among any 
 people hoping to enjoy the smallest portion of civil liberty, 
 is admitted, we believe, by many of the friends of the new 
 Constitution. They contend, however, that judges elected by 
 the people, according to their plan, can and will be as inde- 
 pendent of improper bias or influence as when appointed by 
 the governor and senate. In our judgment, the new Consti- 
 
OLD GUAEDt-JUDICIAEY. 331 
 
 tution has changed the whole principle and character of the 
 judicial institution, mistaken its nature and functions, prostra- 
 ted its independence, destroyed its usefulness, and converted 
 it into a mere supple engine of political intrigue, party pas- 
 sion and violence, and individual oppression. The arrangement 
 they have made is, in our judgment, the very worst imagina- 
 ble. It is shaped in exact opposition to every principle upon 
 which judicial independence and the stability of jurisprudence 
 have been heretofore supposed, by wise and good men, and by 
 many of the most distinguished members of the Convention 
 itself, to rest. They have made them in the first place repre- 
 sentatives of the people by direct election, and for short 
 terms. They have made them district and not State officers, 
 compelled to reside and administer justice among the people 
 who choose them. They have made them re-eligible, so that 
 the hope of continuance in office, and the consequent fear of 
 whatever power and influences, party or personal, may be able 
 to promote or prevent a reelection, will be for ever before 
 their eyes. An institution could not have been more perfectly 
 shaped to subject the mind of the officer to the passions and 
 the will of others. In what will a circuit judge or a judge of 
 the court of appeals, differ from a member of Congress, or a 
 member of the Legislature, save in the greater length of his 
 term, and value of his office, which circumstances will only 
 render him the more intensely servile or obedient, if you pre- 
 fer the term, to the influences which can retain him in it? 
 He becomes a representative of the people, subjected in the 
 most intense degree to the will of the majority of his district, 
 in, the decision of private causes between man and man, 
 involving the rights of person and property. Is this what 
 you have heretofore meant by judicial independence ? 
 
 We are frequently met with the question, are not the people 
 capable of electing judges ? They elect the governor and the 
 senate, who now appoint the judges ; they elect members of 
 Congress, who wield the purse of the nation, and make laws 
 to bind an empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
 ocean; they elect the President of the United States, who 
 
332 T. F. MABSHALL. 
 
 commands the armies and navies of a republic, before whose 
 dawning glories the meridian spender of the Roman and the 
 Greek grows pale; are they not competent, capable to choose 
 a constable, a clerk, a scrivener, a circuit judge, or even so 
 august a functionary as a judge of the court of appeals ? Are 
 not these public officers ? Are not the people supreme ? Who 
 should appoint the servants but the master? These be the 
 terms of flattery and of praise by which our demagogue re- 
 formers, with their short catechism, for ever on their lips, 
 would drown our voice, and bar us all access to your ear. 
 Hear us, people of, Kentucky, hear us at least, though you 
 repudiate our argument, and reject our prayer. When the 
 haughty chief of the confederate Greeks drew his baton of 
 office over the Athenian Themistocles, pressing his advice with 
 patriot urgency — Strike, said the Athenian, presenting his 
 shoulder to the blow, strike but hear me. 
 
 We do not doubt, though the Convention do, your capacity 
 to select suitable persons as judges and clerks. We would not 
 have confined you by constitutional restriction to a particular 
 profession in your choice of judges, or sent you to the court 
 of appeals for a certificate of qualifications for a clerk. We 
 would not have insulted your understanding by a constitu- 
 tional presumption, that unless the convention guided and 
 restrained you, you would or might have selected men to 
 administer the law who had never studied jurisprudence, or 
 clerks, to keep the records, who knew not how to make an 
 entry, or to write their names. Learning and talents of any 
 sort were of no use, unless the community, the people, were 
 judges of them. It is the reputation, the public admiration, 
 that follows great attainments and great genius, in any depart- 
 ment of social life, that makes men seek attainments, and that 
 stimulates genius. Go into any community and seek the most 
 profound lawyer, the ablest physician, the most erudite scholar, 
 the orator who can rouse the understanding or stir the hearts 
 of men, the people will tell you the man. Public opinion is 
 the test of human merit. What is fame but the breath of the 
 people? To what does genius, learning, poetry, eloquence. 
 
OLD GUAED — JUDICIAEY. 333 
 
 apt, look at last, save the immortal wreath which fame holds 
 forth to crown their labors? Holding in simple verity all 
 these opinions — looking to you as the sovereign and master 
 of our glorious country, which you are, and that same breath 
 of yours, which we call fame, as the only hope which cheers 
 us on through life — we still urge it upon you to decline the 
 power proflFered you, and with manly candor which best becomes 
 you and us, to give ear to our reason. 
 
 It is not the capacity of the appointing power which is the 
 real subject of controversy. It is the effect of that power, 
 and the relation which it bears to the judiciary. In this argu- 
 ment, by mutual concession, the independence of the judiciary 
 is the thing sought. When the Governor and Senate make 
 the appointment under the old Constitution, their power over 
 the officer is exhausted. They can not remove him, they can 
 not reappoint him — he holds his office during good behavior — 
 he has nothing to hope or fear from that source, whence he 
 derived his commission. So far as his judgment is to be in- 
 fluenced by them, according to the ordinary run of human 
 motives, he is independent. The Governor is a single person, 
 with himself a limited term of office. The Senate is a small 
 body of men, with an equally limited term. So far as any 
 influence which they might exercise over the court indirectly 
 from their dignity or official station is concerned, it must soon 
 expire. Being few in number, it is not likely that they would 
 be before the judge as suitors. At any rate, that is a diffi- 
 culty which can not be avoided by any mode of appointment, 
 and is reduced infinitely, as you reduce the number of persons 
 concerned in the appointment. It is utterly impossible, but 
 that a judge must come, when elected in the district where he 
 is to preside, to decide causes between the friends that elected 
 him, and the enemies who opposed him. 
 
 If any other power than your own were concerned, we are 
 confident that you would perceive at once, under the arrange- 
 ment of the Convention, that judicial independence was utterly 
 prostrate at the foot of that power., You are the people, the 
 sovereign, who, like the king, never dies, and, like the king, 
 
334 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 " can do no -wrong." You are not like the governor and the 
 Senate, representative oflScers, with short terms — you are 
 eternal. Now suppose a monarch, (and there have been such, 
 in the various experiments of mankind in government,) clothed 
 with your powers, but still supposed in the administration of 
 justice among his subjects, bound by certain laws, fixing and 
 defining private rights of person and property. If he had the 
 appointment of these judges, removable at his pleasure, do 
 you not at once perceive that he could not only rule the State, 
 but that he could come upon the person, into the bosom of the 
 family, and upon the private estate of every subject in his 
 dominion, through his agent and slave, the judge? Has not 
 history, English history, with which we are best acquainted, 
 demonstrated the truth of pur proposition? Has nobody in 
 Kentucky heard or read of the Star Chamber, or of Jefireys? 
 Suppose that, instead of removing him at pleasure, he had the 
 power of appointing him for a limited term, but in case the 
 judge during this term pleased his master, he could reappoint 
 him, woTlld not the judge, in such case, be equally the slave 
 of the appointing power — is there the slightest diiference? If 
 the king could appoint during good behavior — the question 
 of good behavior to be tried by some other tribunal than him- 
 self — or for a limited term, the judge not being again appoint- 
 able, in either case the officer would be independent, and might 
 be just if he willed it — at least he would be free from influ- 
 ence. Predicate the same state of things of an aristocratic 
 council, the Senate of Venice for instance, and you will in- 
 stantly perceive, that you have made an absolute government. 
 Take a democratic assembly — history furnishes examples of 
 every sort — take the French Convention from 1792 to 1794, 
 with its revolutionary tribunal, and you will see the principle 
 fully exemplified. 
 
 The organization of the reign of terror — the awful power 
 of Robespierre and the Jacobin club. Moody, boundless, mur- 
 derous, wielding the guillotine, and leveling society with the 
 ax, would have been incomplete without a dependent judici- 
 ary — a court appointed by the supreme democratic power, and 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 335 
 
 removable at its pleasure. Tyranny, rapacious power, through- 
 out -all time, has felt its aims incomplete, until it has acquired 
 the absolute control of those tribunals which decide upon pri- 
 vate rights, and administer law to the people. The effort of 
 the new Coristitution, to fix the term of office, within which 
 terin, the advocates of that instrument contend the judge to 
 be independent, is a perfect delusion. If I appoint an agent 
 for a limited time, with a salary upon which he is to furnish 
 bread to his wife and children, with the power, at the end of 
 that time, of reappointing him, or putting another in his 
 place — is he not, during that period, by the hope of continu- 
 ance in his office, as much the slave of my pleasure and my 
 will, as though I had the power of removal at any moment? 
 It is evident, too evideilt for argument, that the Convention 
 have prostrated the judges at the foot of what they call the 
 people, that is the tnajority, the ruling party or influences in 
 the district where they are chosen.. To make our view of this 
 great subject perfectly intelligible, we must refer again to the 
 natural distinctions between the legislative and executive, and 
 the judicial functions. You are empowered by your constitu- 
 tions. State and national — constitutions established by your 
 own authority — to elect your executive and legislative officers, 
 and they are reeligible. They are your representatives, the 
 slaves of your will, and they ought to be so. They are made 
 so by this feature of reeligibility, a feature left out of the 
 executive department, and, in our judgment, improperly left 
 out, both in the old and the new Constitution of Kentucky. 
 
 We will take our examples, for argument, from the highest 
 of these functionaries, the President and the Congress of tne 
 United States. They are your representatives. Are they not 
 your servants, the slaves of your will? Did you not design 
 to make them so ? They ought to be so. They are so. Now 
 look at the President of the United States, the highest public 
 functionary, in our judgment, in this world. How is he ap- 
 pointed? A party convention meets and nominates their can- 
 didate, upon certain avowed principles of public policy, to 
 
 which he is pledged. Another party convention meets, and 
 22 
 
336 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 upon opposite principles, nominates another candidate. The 
 people choose between them. The majority decide the con- 
 troversy, and the person elected represents this majority. Do 
 we object to this? Not at all. The powers of this officer 
 relate to public affairs, and they should be administered accord- 
 ing to the public will, which can not be gathered so fairly from 
 any other source as the voice of a majority. Observe, though, 
 how perfectly he represents that majority. To execute their 
 will, and carry out the system of measures and policy which 
 they have decreed, it is necessary for him to appoint a number 
 of officers subordinate to himself. He appoints ministers, em- 
 bassadors, consuls, etc., to conduct our foreign relations. Let 
 any one who voted against him, not of his party, opposed to 
 his political views, we care not what his abilities, his learning, 
 his reputation — ^let such an one apply for station or appoint- 
 ment under the goyernment-^will he get it? You know he 
 can not. Do we complain of this ? Not in the least. No 
 man has a right to office. Offices were created for the public 
 good, not for the advantage of private individuals. If a politi- 
 cal friend of the President he appointed minister to France or 
 England, who has a right to complain on the score of private 
 injury, and what boots it to the public, so the duties be dis- 
 charged. But when the question is, whose land, or house, or 
 money is this ? When a charge of treason or felony hangs 
 over me, and my life or liberty is involved, these are private 
 matters, to be decided by a fixed law, and not according to 
 the discretion or caprice of men or parties, of president or 
 people. 
 
 Between the legislative, the representative branches of gov- 
 ernment, and the judicial, there is this ruling distinction. The 
 first under the instruction of the community should have the 
 most absolute discretion. They should be free to choose,, accord- 
 ing to circumstances, the course to be pursued. The latter is 
 without any discretion at all. We beg leave to explain this 
 distinction somewhat at large. There are persons among us 
 who complain of the voluminous and complicated nature of our 
 jurisprudence. They seem to regard it as the contrivance of 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 337 
 
 lawyers, for the purpose of obscuring what might be rendered 
 plain, and thereby making themselves necessary to the com- 
 munity for the purpose of unraveling a labyrinth, wliich they 
 themselves have devised, and to which they alone hold the 
 clue. A voluminous body of law is a part of the price of lib- 
 erty. It may be an inconvenience, but a very little reflection 
 will satisfy any one that it is the absolutely necessary conse- 
 quence of the first idea and principle of civil liberty. In a 
 despotic government, the judge, the creature of the prince, 
 need not decide by any anterior rules. His decrees are but 
 the arbitrary decisions of his master. They do not form a 
 rule either for himself or future judges in the administration, 
 not of law, but of a capricious will in the settlement of dis- 
 putes among men. In a free country, that is in a country 
 where civil and personal rights are defined, and where law is 
 not an arbitrary decision of the magistrate, but a fixed rule 
 which controls the judge himself, law becomes a body of pre- 
 cedents. The rule which has been applied by previous judges 
 must be pursued. It is not so important what the law is, as 
 that it should be fixed. Certainty and stability are the great 
 requisites in a jurisprudence for freemen. The successive 
 decisions of judges must be published and known, for the 
 guidance of future judges, that like law may be administered 
 in like cases, that the course of justice may be uniform. "Were 
 it otherwise, the power of the judicial magistrate would be 
 arbitrary. His own will, and not the precedent rule, would 
 guide him. This voluminousness and apparent complication 
 of jurisprudence, is a necessary consequence of free institu- 
 tions. 
 
 In reply to all this reasoning of ours, our adversaries say, 
 you have shown that the judicial power, if controlled by any 
 other in the State, becomes the most formidable and oppres- 
 sive. That under its exercise, when guided and controlled by 
 any other authority than its own, power becomes absolute, 
 and the rights, property and liberty of individuals are left 
 without security. 
 
 How happens it, they say, that the judges, with a power so 
 
338 T. r. MAESHALL. 
 
 formidable, left in their own hands independent and uncon- 
 trolled, do not themselves become absolute and despotic? In 
 avoiding absolutism in other branches of government, or in 
 the people themselves, you are piling the most absolute power 
 in the hands of a magistracy which you seek to make irre- 
 sponsible. We state these objections to our own argument 
 with more force and fairness than any of our adversaries with 
 whom we have fallen in. In truth, they seem to know, or to 
 have thought little of the matter. We do it of purpose, that 
 you may have the whole subject before you. We could iiot 
 deceive you if we would — we are very sure we would not 
 if we could. We reserve for our next number the consider- 
 ation of those circumstances, in the nature of the judicial 
 office, which make it the safest of all the depositories of power, 
 when left free from fear or favor, and the most dangerous and 
 terrible if controlled by other powers than its own. 
 
 THE OLD GUARD-JUDICIARY. 
 nsro. III. 
 
 In our last number, we think we have shown the importance 
 of an independent judiciary to the limited constitution of a 
 free people; indeed that is admitted on all hands in the 
 argument. The real question is, how that independence is 
 best to be secured. We endeavored to show in our previous 
 reasoning, the natural distinction that exists between the 
 legislative and judicial powers and functions, in a free fitate ; 
 that the first represents the will of the community, and ought 
 to represent that will in relation to matters that were com- 
 mon to all, that were naturally public and political — that the 
 latter represented a fixed law that was designed to regulate 
 disputes about private rights, either of person or property, 
 occurring between diiferent members of the same community, 
 ©r between the State, the whole body, and a private member. 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 339 
 
 We have endeavored to illustrate our idea by the case of a 
 single individual, managing his own estate and those affairs 
 peculiarly his own, and the case of the same individual having 
 a dispute with some one else in relation to a matter of 
 pr(j)perty or right claimed by an other. In the latter case, 
 we have endeavored to show that the common arbiter, to 
 settle the difference and adjust the question, should be inde- 
 pendent of the parties to the dispute, and appointed by some 
 other power. Since the appearance of our argument, it has 
 been suggested that we have made a case against ourselves. 
 That we have, in the private dispute, used for illustration, 
 made the very case in which the parties may choose an 
 arbitrator or arbitrators, and are authorized to do so by the 
 existing laws — and they liken this choice to an elective judi- 
 ciary. We thank our adversaries for. the suggestion. In the 
 case of a dispute between two private individuals, the law 
 does, indeed, wisely authorise a reference to arbitrators. But 
 in this case, each party concerned chooses a judge. Each 
 judge represents the party selecting him, and the rule refers 
 the appointment of the ultimate arbiter — utnpire as he is 
 called in law— not to the parties, but to the court so con- 
 stituted. Now this arbitration, by the vote and consent of the 
 parties to the dispute, is to be distinguished most evidently 
 from an elective judiciary, in the following particulars. In 
 the case of arbitrators, each party is represented, and when 
 they differ, the decisive voice, the umpire, is selected by the 
 court. In an elective judiciary, where the community, of 
 course, is divided in the choice of a judge, the majority alone 
 is represented. The voice of the minority is lost. If you 
 would, in every instance, let the majority choose one-half the 
 court, the minority the other, and, in case of a difference of 
 opinion, let the court itself choose an umpire, you would 
 liken an elective judiciary to a board of arbitrators chosen 
 by the parties^ But what mortal, whose rights were involved 
 in a dispute with an other, would be willing to refer the ques- 
 tion to a court chosen entirely by his adversary ? Yet this 
 is precisely the position of the minority, or any member of a 
 
340 T. r, MARSHALL. 
 
 minority, in a State, where the judges are to sit upon the trial 
 of private causes, or of causes in which the constitution of 
 the country is involved, causes which can never occur, except 
 upon alleged violations of the fundamental law, by a majority, 
 and are themselves chosen by, and represent that majority. 
 
 In a dispute between an individual asserting the constitution 
 of his country against the will of a majority, which he asserts 
 to have violated that constitution, how, in the name of the 
 ordinary principles of human nature, can he expect a fair 
 trial of the question from judges appointed by, and dependent 
 upon the very party whom he is accusing, and against whom 
 he is seeking justice. "We think we are understood. We 
 shall recur, however, to the same principles, and retrace the 
 same argument when we come to consider the legislative power 
 and examine the manner in which this truly elective branch 
 of free government has been handled by the convention. 
 
 If it be not evident, from our previous argument, that the 
 election of judges to private causes and constitutional ques- 
 tions, coupled with their reeligibility, by a simple majority 
 of the community, subjects the will of the judges and the 
 constitution of the country to the will of that majority for 
 the time — that it destroys all idea of a fixed jurisprudence — 
 that it breaks down all limitations in government — that it 
 makes the will of the majority supreme, absolute, uncon- 
 trolled, despotic, not only in the direction of public affairs, but 
 in the administration of justice and the decision of causes 
 between man and man — rthen we despair of our powers of 
 argument or discussion — and if we have shown this, then it 
 follows that an elective judiciary, for a limited term, and 
 reeligible, makes a simple democracy, and destroys the great 
 leading fundamental idea of American liberty with which we 
 set out. 
 
 We might, perhaps, rest the argument here. In the close, 
 however, of our last number, with the utmost fairness, we 
 stated certain difiiculties thrown in our way by our adversa- 
 ries, or, rather, we stated certain objections which fair and 
 philosophic opponents might be supposed to urge against our 
 
OLD GUAED — JUDICIARY. 341 
 
 position. We proceed to ans\¥er them. We will endeavor to 
 answer them fully, and in doing so, must sometimes recur to, 
 and rely upon principles heretofore stated, and, we think, 
 proven by ourselves. 
 
 We proceed with our argument in answer to the objections, 
 the strongest we know of, as stated by ourselves in the close 
 of our last address to you. We are constantly told, we are 
 annoyed with the oft-repeated tale, that our mode of reasoning 
 is too profound, that there is too much the air of science, too 
 much of the scholastic about our method of handling political 
 subjects for the people. Various persons, even among our 
 friends, say that we lay the foundation of our reasoning too 
 deep for the popular comprehension. Such persons wish us 
 to split our articles into short paragraphs, cut up to suit 
 what they call the popular appetite. They conceive the people 
 of Kentucky incapable of comprehending a regular and con- 
 sistent argument upon government. They may be right. If 
 they are, however, our hope is lost. A people who can not 
 comprehend an argument upon government are not fit for 
 self-government. The brutal ignorance which those who 
 oppose us suppose to exist in the community, presupposes a 
 state of things which would render democratic government 
 the most execrable form of dominion ever exercised over 
 men — the dominion of brute force and brute ignorance over 
 intellect and property. We have, ourselves, an aljiding con- 
 fidence in the general intelligence and good sense of the people 
 of Kentucky. We address ourselves to it, and shall continue 
 to do so — should we fail, the consciousness of having dis- 
 charged our duty will afford some consolation even in defeat. 
 
 We state then to you, as an American idea, lying as the 
 broad basis at the bottom of our whole institutions, that an 
 independent judiciary is the foundation of our peculiar system 
 of civil liberty. 
 
 This system of courts which are to decide between man and 
 man upon questions of private right — upon matters of property 
 between individuals, or upon matters that may arise between 
 the citizen as an individual and the government — between the 
 
342 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 entire community and a single man, should be independent of 
 the parties between whom they are to decide. This is our 
 proposition. We know that many of you, probably a large 
 majority of you, object to the present constitution, because 
 you say that the judicial office under it is a life estate. You 
 considered the liability to impeachment and trial, through your 
 representatives, or to removal by an address of two-thirds of 
 the legislature, as an insufficient guarantee of good conduct 
 in your judges. We know this. You wished your judges ap- 
 pointed for a limited term. We will discuss this matter with 
 you as reasonable men arguing a great subject with a great 
 and sensible people. 
 
 We have already said, and we take occasion to repeat it, 
 that the real question does not involve the capacity of the 
 appointing power. The question is as to the independence 
 of the Judiciary when appointed. Were the governor and the 
 senate permanent bodies, with the power of appointment and 
 removal, or what is the same thing, of reappointment in cases 
 the judges pleased them, we would die in opposition to such a 
 a government — no hell could be worse. It is not that the 
 people are incapable of judging of personal worth or merit — 
 it is not that they do not understand the qualifications of 
 distinguished citizens, for public office of any sort, legislative, 
 executive, or judicial — it is upon no such ground that we 
 found our objection to the plan of the convention. 
 
 The old constitution designed to make the Judiciary independ- 
 ent — that was the object. We have, in part, reviewed and 
 commented upon the means they employed. There is an im- 
 perfection, an evident deficit in the mode of their work. They 
 have left the JudiciaryJ so far as their salaries are concerned, 
 absolutely in the power of the legislature. It is competent 
 for the legislative branch, by reducing the salaries, to starve 
 the judges off the bench, whenever they become obnoxious br 
 disagreeable to that arm of the government. He who holds 
 another's bread in his hand, who can furnish or withhold the 
 means of subsistence to himself, his wife, his children, is the 
 master, and can command the services, and lord it over the 
 
OLD GUAED — JUDICIAEY. 343 
 
 will of the person so situated. Had the old constitution 
 placed within itself a minimum judicial salary below which 
 the' legislature could not reduce' it, or declared that the legis- 
 lature should have no power to reduce the salaries of the 
 judges when once fixed by law, during their continuance in 
 office — the means would have been all shaped to the end, and, 
 we could have tested fairly and certainly the wisdom of the 
 design. 
 
 We desire to make this point entirely clear — ^it is urged as 
 an objection to the old constitution on the ground of a depar- 
 ture from its own principles, or rather a failure to adjust the 
 means precisely to the clear and avowed object of the instru- 
 ment. In the constitution of the Judiciary, according to the 
 principles which we have Stated, and from which we reason, 
 there are two leading objects, two great ends, to be attained. 
 Oiie is to secure, in the most important of the branches of 
 political administration, the highest talents, learning and char- 
 acter. The other is to place these high qualities, when se- 
 cured to the public service, in a position to exert their most 
 beneficial influence and action, by removing every sinister 
 motive resulting from hope or fear, from favor or affection, 
 from love or hate. 
 
 The State can not secure to her service the highest talents 
 without paying what the commodity she requires will com- 
 mand in the market of the world. The qualities necessary to 
 complete the character of a great judge are not so abundant 
 as to glut the market. They are rare, they are of exceeding 
 value, and must needs be costly. He who will follow out the 
 principle strictly, and means to secure a Judiciary at once 
 able and free, will provide an independent support for the 
 judges, and place their pecuniary compensation beyond the 
 reach or control of those whom the Judiciary are designed to 
 cmh and to restrain. Under our reasoning, it would, at first 
 blush, seem that the new constitution was an improvement, in 
 this particular, upon the old. The proposed instrument pro- 
 vides that the salaries of the judges, when fixed by law, shall 
 not be reduced during the term of office. High salaries, so 
 
344 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 efficient to attract great talents, and the independence of those 
 salaries of the legislature, so mighty to make the judges free 
 from fear of other branches of the government, under the 
 new constitution, become aggravated, and intense causes of 
 dependence, fear and servility on the part of the judges. We 
 beg leave to explain this position and this distinction some- 
 what at length. 
 
 Under the old constitution, offer a permanent and ample 
 salary, sufficient to attract men of the first order of learning 
 and talents, and you have them— at least, you can have them 
 — and they are independent judges. Under the new consti- 
 tution, give high salaries to your judges, and what is the con- 
 sequence? You will, no doubt, have men of the first order 
 candidates for the judicial office. But when elected, with the 
 understanding that, if agreeable to the party that elected 
 them, they can be reelected, and hold on by this tenure of 
 pleasing their friends or masters, who does not at once per- 
 ceive, that the larger the salary, the more valuable the office, 
 the more intensely you subject the functionary to the power 
 that appoints him. Fair salaries, salaries sufficient to com- 
 mand the services of men of the first order, under this ar- 
 rangement, become the very means of corrupting the Judiciary 
 to the last degree. We mean to deal with you and the ques- 
 tion before us with the utmost candor. We will not say that 
 it was the precise aim of the convention to destroy the re- 
 public. We will not charge upon that body the deliberate 
 purpose to destroy all limitations in government, and to break 
 down a free commonwealth to the level and condition of one 
 of the miserable, jarring, wrangling, banishing, proscribing, 
 murderous, faction-ridden democracies of ancient Greece or 
 modern Italy — Athens or Florence, if you please. But this 
 we say — whatever they mean, the effect of their measures and 
 their plan terminates in that result. We have said the peope 
 were as capable o"f electing judges of competent ability and 
 learning as the governor and the senate. We have said that 
 we believed that yoil were dissatisfied with the tenure qf the 
 judicial office, as established by the present constitution — that 
 
OLD GUAED — JUDICIAEY. 345 
 
 you desired a limited term — a fixed period at •which the judi- 
 cial office should terminate. 
 
 The people of Kentucky were satisfied with the principle 
 upon which their constitution rested in relation to the Judi- 
 ciary. The error, the defect, was such as we have stated. It 
 is not fair to charge any failure in this branch of our govern- 
 ment — if, indeed, there has been any failure, upon the ap- 
 pointing power. To have made the old instrument complete, 
 to have carried out its purpose, it would have been necessary 
 to have given constitutional salaries, to have rendered the 
 judges independent of the legislature. We speak of this as a 
 defect, because it was a failure to carry out fully the design, 
 the end of the framers of the constitution, by an exact and 
 perfect adaptation of the natural and appropriate means to 
 that design. 
 
 There are various conceivable modes of constituting the Ju- 
 diciary. They may be considered in reference to the tenure 
 of office or the mode and source of appointment. The pre- 
 sent method, in relation to both tenure and appointment, 
 might be changed or modified, and the great principle, the 
 ruling object which is, if not conceded, at least assumed in 
 this argument, still be preserved. This great principle, this 
 ruling object, is the independence of the courts, no matter 
 how constituted. We have said so often, in the course of our 
 argument, that we surely need not repeat it; that, in our 
 judgment, the people are competent to select judges. If they 
 elected their judges during good behavior, which is the pre- 
 sent tenure of office, the only difierence between that mode 
 of appointment and the present, as bearing upon the inde- 
 pendence of the Judiciary, would be this. The governor and 
 the senate being few in number, and with a limited term of 
 official existence, could hardly be expected to come before the 
 judge in the character of parties. By the act of appointment 
 their power is exhausted. To them the judge is not, and can 
 not be rendered responsible in any way for any decision he 
 may make. There is no permanent relation, no continuing 
 tie between the appointing power and the officer, which can 
 
346 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 influence his will or enslave his judgment in the discharge of 
 his duties. The governor and the senate cease, in a short 
 time, to be governor and senate, and there is no conceivable 
 source of influence or corruption from the appointing power, 
 unless the very remote one, that some of them may become 
 parties in a suit before the court, and the judge be swayed or 
 affected by gratitude for the vote he may have received, or 
 anger from the opposition to his nomination. In an election 
 by the ppople, the judge presiding among those who chose 
 him, it is obvious that he must be swayed, even though he 
 hold his office during good behavior, by the feelings engen- 
 dered by the popular contest through which he has passed in 
 his way to the bench. This is the only difference between the 
 two modes of appointment, the tenure being as at present. 
 This difference operating upon the independence and impar- 
 tiality of the courts was the reason why the present mode of 
 appointment was preferred. The people of Kentucky, we 
 verily believe, without wishing to destroy the independence of 
 their Judiciary, desired to change the tenure of office, and fix 
 it at a limited term, instead of during good behavior. We 
 will not, it is not necessary that we should, discuss this ques- 
 tion. We have already said enough to show that the old 
 constitution was imperfect on its own principle. That for 
 want of fixed and independent salaries, the appointing power 
 was, to some extent, crippled, and could not command, to the 
 service of the State, the highest talents and the richest quali- 
 ties required. If this provision were incorporated in the 
 present constitution, if a constitutional salary, independent of 
 the legislature, were provided for the courts, and the appoint- 
 ing power thus enabled to select the highest talents from the 
 bar, we would be enabled to judge fairly the soundness of the 
 principle adopted by the convention of 1799. Even with this 
 manifest imperfection, this departure in a very important par- 
 ticular from its own principle, the practical working of the 
 machine has been eminently successful. The Judiciary of 
 Kentucky, taken collectively, will challenge a comparison with 
 that of any State of the Union. The decisions of her highest 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 347 
 
 court are cited as authority every where. They form a part 
 of the library of distinguished lawyers every where in America. 
 New editions of our reports are publishing in other States, 
 and are sought after with an avidity that prove their import- 
 ance and their value. Kentucky has no reason to blush for 
 her Judiciary. Indeed the convention itself has paid it the 
 highest compliments, at the expense of those branches of the 
 government which have always been elective. 
 
 Were you to change the present constitution in relation to 
 the Judiciary, leaving the appointing power where it is, but 
 limiting the term of office to a stated number of years — mark 
 the consequences. In the first place, if you desired (of which 
 we have no doubt) to command to your service the ablest men 
 among you, you would be compelled to give higher salaries 
 than you do at present. The machinery, if it were made 
 effective, of necessity would be more expensive. No man 
 would quit his business, abandon the lucrative pursuit of his 
 profession, to serve the State for a limited time, at the same 
 price for which he would undertake the same office during 
 good behavior. We do not deny in this argument that you 
 might have an independent judge for a limited term. It is 
 evident, however, to your common sense that he would cost 
 you more. If you preferred electing him yourselves, to hav- 
 ing him appointed in the present mode, you might still pre- 
 serve his independence. He would, to be sure, as already 
 indicated in our argument, be exposed to partial judgment, 
 from his affections and passions, springing from the popular 
 contest through which he had risen to the bench — in other 
 respects, and as far as the appointing power had any con- 
 tinued authority over him, he would, or at least might, be 
 free. The convention, however, have done nothing like this. 
 They have made the judges elective by the people. They 
 have made them elective for short terms. They have made 
 them ree'ligible. They have not fixed a minimum salary in 
 the constitution, but they have declared that the salary of a 
 judge, as fixed by law, shall not be reduced during his term 
 of office. This latter principle, so important to an independent 
 
348 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 judiciary, becomes not only powerless, but absolutely mis- 
 chievous under the new arrangement. 
 
 We beg leave to explain this idea of ours somewhat at large. 
 We have explained until we fear we have wearied you, that 
 the power of reappointing an oflScer or agent, is precisely the 
 same in eifect, with the power of removing or displacing that 
 oiEcer or agent at pleasure. A king, or an aristocratic coun- 
 cil, who could appoint a judicial magistrate for a limited term, 
 but with the power to reappoint him indefinitely, provided he 
 pleased his employers, has precisely the same control over the 
 will and the actions of that magistrate, as though the same 
 king or council could remove the oflEicer at pleasure. There 
 is not the slightest difference so far as the question of free- 
 dom or dependence is concerned. The salaries given to the 
 judges under a system designed to secure their independence, 
 are the most powerful among the instruments shaped to 
 secure this result. Under the new Constitution, should the 
 legislature give high salaries, they will be the means of cor- 
 rupting the Judiciary to the utmost extent, of this most exten- 
 sive scheme of corruption. Give to a circuit judge, or a judge 
 of the appellate court, an annual allowance sufficient to sup- 
 port himself and family, his wife and children, in comfort. 
 Give him enough to educate his offspring, to indulge them 
 ■while rearing, in the luxuries, the pleasures of life, and place 
 him in a position that all this is to be lost, that he is to be 
 thrown back upon his own resources, his own efforts, with the 
 disadvantage of having been removed from the scene of con- 
 test, of having lost his business, is it not at once perceived, 
 that the amount of the salary, the value of the office, becomes 
 an intense source of influence, a powerful and overruling mo- 
 tive, by which a magistrate, so situated, is subjected, abso- 
 lutely, to those who have appointed him, and can continue him 
 in his office. The worst feature in an elective and reeligible 
 Judiciary is, that the high salaries, so necessary to secure the 
 highest order of talent to the service of the State, become, 
 under this system, the very means of corruption. The ali- 
 ment, the food of an independent judiciary, under a sound 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 349 
 
 system, becomes under this, the poison , which taints, vitiates 
 corrupts and destroys. 
 
 High salaries, under the present constitution, are the means 
 by which you can attract to your service the ablest men of the 
 State. High salaries, if the legislature choose to give them, 
 are the means by which your new judges will be bought and 
 bribed to serve the power which elects them. If you do not 
 pay them well, you will have a worthless set of servants. If 
 you give the compensation necessary to secure talent, you will 
 have, by means of that very compensation, a set of slaves 
 bowing to the will and obeying the mandates of the power 
 that appointed, and can continue them in office, and will, upon 
 the condition of obedience. 
 
 We have reasoned thus far to show the importance of an 
 independent judiciary. The difficulty suggested by ourselves, 
 that a Judiciary constituted upon our principle, holds a power 
 dangerous in any hands, that it is itself a despotism, and a 
 despotism coming into the very bosom, the every day rights 
 and pursuits of men, remains to be answered and removed. 
 
 Take away fear or hope, and remove the dread of conse- 
 quences — and of all the functions to be discharged in life — 
 that of deciding questions of mere right between individuals 
 with neither of whom the arbiter is connected, is the least 
 exposed, according to the ordinary principles of human nature, 
 to abuse or corruption. There is not a man in the world, 
 who would not, if you will remove all temptation, of fear, or 
 interest, prefer right to wrong. Go to the antipodes and 
 bring me a human being, I care not how corrupted, how de- 
 based — he may have been exiled, transported to Botany Bay 
 for his crimes — he may have been cast in a state of society 
 where all the higher walks of life, all the nobler avocations 
 by which fame is won, and honor and wealth and reputation 
 earned, are crowded, till in despair he has become a wretch 
 and turned in wrath a felon against his species — but bring 
 him, outcast, exile, felon though he be, to decide where he has 
 no interest, no hope, no fear, between two men upon a ques- 
 tion of property, of liberty or of right, and he will decide 
 
350 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 according to the promptings of truth and justice. The very 
 crimes in which he may have been steeped; the very infamy 
 in which he may have been overwhelmed; the very curse of 
 his species, the condemnation of mankind, which rests upon 
 his name, will form a motive in addition to the instinctive 
 love of truth and justice which forms a part of our nature, to 
 insure a righteous judgment. Bring a man from the other 
 side of the globe, let the parties between whom he is to de- 
 cide be strangers to him; let it be understood, that so soon 
 as the judgment is rendered, he is to be carried back, that 
 there is to be no further connection of any sort between him 
 and the litigants, and what is there to tempt him to a corrupt 
 judgment? Place the Judiciary in a position where they are 
 unawed by pow^er, and free from the influence of affection or 
 of hate, and it would seem impossible but that they should 
 be pure. 
 
 Powerful as are the judiciary for good, they seem to be impo- 
 tent for mischief. They can levy no tax, raise no revenue, 
 command no army. They have no purse, wield no sword. In 
 the judgments they pronounce they are governed by a fixed 
 law, which, excludes all arbitrary discretion. The parties who 
 come before them are represented by men whose profession 
 and business it is to understand the law, and who scrutinize, 
 with sleepless and searching vigilance, the decisions of the 
 court. There is no department of government exposed to so 
 watchful an observation as the Judiciary. They are sometimes 
 said to be irresponsible. It is an utter mistake. No branch 
 of government, no public functionary whatever, no agent in 
 human affairs is subjected to a closer and more constant ob- 
 servation, to a scrutiny so thorough and searching. 
 
 If we have not failed utterly in our purpose, we have estab- 
 lished clearly two or three very important political proposi- 
 tions. We have striven — and we hope not in vain — to show 
 that there is a distinction growing out of the nature of their 
 respective functions, between the legislative and judicial de- 
 partments of government, which renders the one representa- 
 tive strictly in its character, but which requires the other to 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 351 
 
 be independent, or it fails in the object of its creation. We 
 have shown, we think, conclusively, that in any form of gov- 
 ernment, other than the democratic, if you render the Judi- 
 ciary dependent upon the ruling political power of the State, 
 you have destroyed every security for individual rights, and 
 subjected the community absolutely to that power. The plan 
 of the convention subjects the Judiciary constantly, intensely, 
 to the will and the passions of the party which elects them. 
 It converts the judge into a politician. It makes him the 
 representative and instrument of faction, instead of the organ 
 and mouthpiece of a fixed and stable law. It carries through 
 every part and parcel of the social order, absolute, irresistible, 
 irresponsible power. It will convert a free republic, with a 
 limited constitution and a fixed body of law, into a simple 
 democracy, without check or balance, restraint or responsibility. 
 
 And this they call progress. They throw off all the guards, 
 that the accumulated experience of thirty centuries have 
 shown to be necessary to every form of human power. They 
 go back to the first crude experiments in government; experi- 
 ments made in the infancy of society and of knowledge, and 
 from which men have every where fled with terror, and vaunt 
 of these long exploded errors, as grand discoveries, the won- 
 derful inventions of modern genius. 
 
 Had the convention limited the judicial term of office with 
 the appointing power where it is, they would have imposed 
 upon the government a more costly machinery, but the courts 
 might still have been independent, and capable of performing 
 their appropriate functions in the social economy. Had they 
 wished to change the appointing power, as well as to alter the 
 tenure and limit the term, they might have made them eligible 
 by the people in a manner and upon conditions that would have 
 preserved the great principle of independence. The plan they 
 have adopted, however, is shaped with the utmost ingenuity 
 to destroy all that has heretofore, in this country, been con- 
 sidered as constituting the purity and usefulness of the courts, 
 the stability and certainty of jurisprudence, the supremacy 
 of the constitution, the safety and the liberty of individuals. 
 23 
 
352 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 THE OLD GUARD-JUDICIAM. 
 isro. I'V. 
 
 Wb resume to-day our own discussion, in our own way. We 
 have already argued the general question of an elective judici- 
 ary at such length, that we fear we have wearied you. In this 
 number, in which we design to conclude the subject, we shall 
 go more minutely into the particular provisions of the new 
 Constitution, and examine them more in detail, in relation to 
 the judicial branch of the government, than was consistent 
 with our previous general view of the general question. We 
 have discussed separately the various propositions involved in 
 the single question of an elective judiciary. In the further 
 prosecution of our argument, we shall consider the principles 
 on which we rely, as proven and established, and shall proceed 
 "to compare the details with the principles. We desire further 
 to collect together — to sum up the result of our argument — 
 to present, without further discussion of the particular prin- 
 ciples, in one general view, and in connected order, the sum 
 of all the propositions we have sought to establish. When we 
 have done this, we shall have closed the regular and elaborate 
 examination of this branch of the great subject before us. 
 Should we touch it again, it will be incidentally, and only by 
 way of illustration, and as it stands in natural and necessary 
 connection with other portions of the' new Constitution which 
 remain to be handled. 
 
 In the detailed examination upon which we are entering, we 
 regret that our limits will not allow us to transcribe the entire 
 article in relation to the judicial department. It is the fourth 
 in order in the instrument itself. We shall cite from it, in 
 some instances at large, the sections to which we wish more 
 particularly to invite your attention. 
 
 In the constitution of the supreme court, you have doubt- 
 less observed that it is not a court chosen by the State at 
 large. The commonwealth is to be broken into four districts, 
 
OLD GUAED — JUDICIARY. 353 
 
 as nearly equal in voting population as may be, in each of 
 ■which the qualified voters shall elect one judge. The term of 
 office of these judges, after the first election, shall be for eight 
 years. The judges at the first term of the court after the 
 first election, are to determine by lot the length of time each 
 shall serve. And in such manner that the term of one shall 
 expire in 1852, the next in 1854, the third in 1856, and the 
 fourth in 1858. After this, it will be perceived, that an elec- 
 tion of one judge will take place every two years. The legis- 
 lature are further empowered' to reduce the number of judges 
 and districts to three, upon the occurrence of a vacancy on the 
 bench — in which case the term of ofiSce shall be so changed 
 as to preserve the principle of electing one judge every two 
 years. Should this reduction of the number of judges lake 
 place, you will at once perceive the necessity of reducing the 
 term of office from eight to six years — ^in no other way could 
 the principle be preserved. When a vacancy shall occur on 
 the bench, from any cause, the governor shall issue a writ of 
 election, to the proper district, to fill such vacancy for the 
 residue of the term. We have cited with the utmost exact- 
 ness the provisions of the Cons,titution in relation to the 
 supreme court upon which we mean particularly to comment. 
 There is, however, before, we pass to the consideration of the 
 other and inferior branches of the Judiciary, one provision in 
 relation to the supreme court, so curious, so mysterious, so 
 utterly unreachable by any power of legal construction, or 
 philological criticism of which we are masters, that we must 
 claim your patience and your pardon for introducing the sec- 
 tion at large. It is the 15th section of the 4th article, and 
 is couched in these oracular words : 
 
 "Whenever an appeal or writ of error may be pending in 
 the court of appeals, on the trial of which a majority of, 
 the judges thereof can not sit, {or) on account of interest in 
 the event of the cause, or on account of their relation to either 
 party, or where (he judge may have decided in the inferior 
 court, the general assembly shall provide by law for the 
 
354 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 organization of a temporary and special court, for the trial of 
 such cause or causes." 
 
 The judicial power of the commonwealth is declared to be 
 vested in this supreme court, thus constituted, and the courts 
 established by this Constitution, and such inferior courts as the 
 general assembly may, from time to time, erect and establish. 
 
 There is established by the Constitution, a circuit court for 
 each county now existing, or which may hereafter be estab- 
 lished. The general assembly, at their first session after the 
 adoption of the new Constitution, are required to divide the 
 State into twelve judicial districts, having due regard to 
 business, territory, and population. In each district a judge 
 shall be elected for the particular district, and shall hold his 
 office for the term of six years, with the proviso, however, *hat 
 the term of the first judges, elected in May, 1851, shall expire 
 on the first Monday in August, 1856. The general assembly 
 are empowered to establish an additional district every four 
 years, till they amount to sixteen, after which there shall be 
 no increase in the number until the population of the State 
 shall exceed one million five hundred thousand. The judges 
 shall, at stated times, receive salaries to be fixed by law, 
 which shall not be diminished during the term for which they 
 were elected. If a vacancy shall occur, the governor shall 
 issue a writ of election to fill the vacancy for the residue of 
 the term, provided that if it be less than one year, the gover- 
 nor may appoint for the remainder of the term. 
 
 " The general assembly shall provide by law for some per- 
 son to preside in each of the circuit courts, when from any 
 cause the judge shall fail to attend, or if in attendance, can 
 not properly preside." The qualifications of the judges of the 
 court of appeals and the circuit courts are the same. Citizen- 
 ship of the United States ; two years residence in the district 
 for which he is a candidate, next preceding the election; thirty 
 years of age, and eight years practice of law or service on the 
 bench, are the tests established for both. The removal of a 
 judge from his district vacates his office. 
 
OLD GUARD — ^JUDICIARY. 355 
 
 A county court shall be established in each county, now 
 existing, or which may hereafter be established, to consist of 
 a president and two associates, any two of whom shall consti- 
 tute a court for the transaction of business — they are to be 
 elected by the qualified voters of the county for the term of 
 four years, and shall receive such compensation for their 
 services as may be provided by lav- Their jurisdiction is to 
 be regulated by law, and until changed shall be the same as 
 is now vested in the county courts. The qualifications for 
 these offices, are citizenship of the United States, twenty-one 
 years of age, and residence in the county one year next pre- 
 ceding the election. 
 
 The several counties shall be laid off into districts of con- 
 venient size, and two justices elected in each district by the 
 qualified voters, for the term of four years. The qualifications 
 of these are, citizenship of the United States, twenty-one years 
 of age, and residence in the district for which they may be 
 chosen. The general assembly are empowered to make these 
 justices members of the county court, at the court of claims, 
 and in laying the county levy and making appropriations. 
 The general assembly are also empowered to abolish the 
 office of associate judge of the county court, and make the 
 justices, in that event, members of the court for the trans- 
 action of all business. Removal from the county or district 
 for which they may have been elected, vacates all these offices. 
 These officers are all reeligible. There is a peculiarity in the 
 arrangement of the periods at which the various elections are 
 to take place, to which we would call your attention. The 
 first election of the legislative branches of the government 
 under the Constitution, is to be held in August, 1851, which 
 will throw the election upon the odd year always for those 
 officers, as 51, 53, 55, etc., which will happen in the case of 
 both Senate and House of Representatives. The elections for 
 all the judicial officers, from the supreme court to the justices 
 of the peace, with their ministerial oflBcers, clerks, sheriffs) 
 constables, etc., are so arranged, that the first election is to be 
 held not in August, but in May, 1851, and infringing the 
 
356 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 terms assigned to them by the Constitution at the first elec- 
 tion, their respective officers are to be vacated the first time 
 in the even years, as 1852, '54, '56, '58, etc. As in the case 
 of the court of appeals — one judge elected in 1851, goes out 
 in '52, the next in '54, the next in '56, and the next in '58, 
 shortening the term by one year ; and so with all the rest. 
 The object of this arrangement is obviously to prevent the 
 political and judicial elections from being thrown together. 
 The meaning and spirit of it was a distrust of the elective 
 principle, not upon the grounds which we have assumed, not 
 for reasons growing out of the different nature of the political 
 and judicial functions, but from real distrust of the people 
 themselves, and a vain effort by separating the time, to sever 
 the connection between the judicial and merely ministerial 
 officers, and the party and political, passions which for ever 
 prevail in democratic societies. A happy device this most 
 certainly, and at the same time a large concession to the 
 opponents of the new Constitution, 
 
 Although not in exact connection with the view we are 
 taking of the judicial department, we here call your attention 
 to the condition in which the Convention leave the electors, 
 the people themselves. Each county in the State, as you are 
 aware, is to be laid off into precincts of convenient size, with 
 regard to the qualifications of voters, the most invaluable of 
 the franchise of the citizen; we beg leave to quote the section 
 entire. It is the 8th section of the 2d article, and is in the 
 following words : 
 
 " Every free white male citizen of the age of twenty-one 
 years, who has resided in the State two years, or in the 
 county, town, or city in which he offers to vote, one year next 
 preceding the election, shall be a voter; hut such voter shall 
 have been, for sixty days next preceding the election, a resident 
 of the precinct in which he offers to vote, and he shall cast his 
 vote in said precinct, and not elsewhere." 
 
 We have reason to believe that there are many places in 
 the State where the new Constitution has not been circulated 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 357 
 
 to any great extent. And by consequence, and from the 
 shortness of the time allowed by the convention before the 
 election, a great number of you have had no opportunity of 
 examining its provisions minutely for yourselves. We have 
 been, therefore,- thus particular in going into its details, and, 
 in some instances, quoting it literally and at large. For those 
 who have had leisure and opportunity to study it carefully, 
 this synopsis and these details are unnecessary — a hint or an 
 allusion, in most instances, would be sufficient to make our 
 argument intelligible. 
 
 From this review of the judicial department, it is evident 
 that the revolution is thorough, complete, radical. There is 
 scarce a vestige or feature left of the scheme and plan of the 
 old instrument by which we are enabled even to trace its 
 ruins. 
 
 Not only is the appointing power and the tenure of office 
 changed — not only are the judges made elective by the people, 
 and the tenure of office limited to a term of years — changes 
 which we have admitted, and shown might have been made, 
 and if connected with ample and permanent salaries, might 
 have secured at a greater expense, and at some greater expo- 
 sure to the influence of the passions, an upright, an able, and 
 an independent judiciary — not only is the independence of 
 the Judiciary utterly broken down by the feature of reeligi- 
 bility, but the commonwealth itself is broken to pieces. There 
 is no State judiciary, deriving their offices from a common 
 source, and acknowledging a common authority. The repre- 
 sentative principle is not only carried throughout the system 
 — not only are the judges changed from passionless organs 
 of a fixed law, into the political servants, necessarily, aye, 
 and rightfully, according to the new theory, the mere agents 
 of the will of those who elected and can reelect them — but 
 the last hope of a stable law, of the unity of oar jurispru- 
 dence, is destroyed by breaking the State into fractions, and 
 making the judges the representatives of the various wills or 
 passions of these various little independent judicial democra- 
 cies. We have said that we would not reargue the proposi- 
 
358 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 tions with which we set out — we will consider them as proven. 
 We do beseech you, however, rigorously to apply the prin- 
 ciples which your ancestors and yourselves certainly, until 
 within these few years, deemed essential to your security and 
 your freedom — to apply them rigorously to the system of 
 government now submitted to you, and if it be found to re- 
 verse them all, to fail in every demand made by them, all and 
 singly, in every part and in every form to fail, in the name 
 of experience and your own history and memories, and of all 
 the consistency becoming a great and free and stable people, 
 fling it from you with scorn and disgust. What is there in 
 your recollections of the past that should make you weary of 
 interpreters of the law, rendered as independent as the nature 
 of things will admit, of the overbearing influence of wealth 
 and power, placed as far above the sweeping fury of the 
 storm of parties as the strong scaffolding of the constitution 
 can be made to bear them up. The convention are evidently 
 disgusted with those branches of the government heretofore 
 elective. They have sat as a legislature, not as a convention 
 — they have run out their constitution into all the cumbrous 
 detail of a statute. They are afraid to trust your represen- 
 tatives to assemble more than once in two years — they have 
 taken from them all discretion as to the time they are to 
 occupy, and fixed and limited it themselves. They have left 
 them nothing to do when they do assemble — but chalked out 
 for them, in the most minute detail, the whole career of 
 legislation upon the most important subjects. They have 
 fixed the taxes and the system of taxation — they not only 
 will not permit the legislature to appropriate over an hundred 
 dollars, save on conditions equivalent to an executive veto, 
 but have put it out of their power to lower, to modify, or 
 alter the taxes. They have deprived your real representatives 
 almost entirely of all discretion in the management of your 
 public affairs. They have made no complaint of the judges 
 — they have not abridged their powers or jurisdiction. In the 
 constitution of the Judiciary, indeed, they have shown their 
 usual distrust of the legislature. The old constitution made 
 
OLD GITARD — JUDICIAEY. 359 
 
 the supreme court a constitutional coUrt, and made it inde- 
 pendent entirely of the legislature, but left the circuit courts 
 and subordinate tribunals subject to legislative reorganization, 
 according to the changing circumstances of the country, the 
 demands and the convenience of the people. The new con- 
 stitution has made the circuit courts constitutional courts. 
 They have reduced the judicial districts to the number of 
 twelve. They have pointed out, as if endowed with omnis- 
 cience, the precise times at which any increase may be made 
 — one in every four years may be added, till they reach six- 
 teen, and then stop, till the population attain to a million and 
 a half. Never, never did any body of men manifest so deep 
 a distrust of the representative and popular principle. And 
 yet condemning, branding it where it existed, they have car- 
 ried it into a department where it was not before — a depart- 
 ment to which, organized as they found it, they attached no 
 blame, and whose powers they have not curtailed. But we 
 were borne away by the current of our thoughts into a branch 
 of the subject not now under review; we will consider the 
 legislative department hereafter. 
 
 But this same distrust of the people, at whose feet they 
 seem to fawn, and upon whose sovereign robes they spew the 
 slaver of their insincere and filthy flattery, marks the arrange- 
 ment of their elective judiciary. Although they have shown 
 no distrust of the Judiciary, and expressed no censure upon 
 its past conduct — imposed no restraint upon its powers, as 
 they have done upon the legislature — yet, the moment they 
 make it elective, they manifest the profound contempt and 
 want of confidence they feel for the capacity of that very 
 power in whose hands they have placed their appointment. 
 
 Why is it that they will not allow the elections of judges 
 to come on the same year that political elections take place ? 
 Why ? but that they suspect the judges will be placed on 
 party tickets, along with candidates for congress, the senate, 
 the legislature. Why ? but that they dread the result of the 
 tremendous experiment to which they urge you. Why ? but 
 that they hav« no confidence in the people in any thing. We 
 
360 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 have already, in a former number, examined the constitution 
 of th6 S}ipreme court in relation to the peculiar mode of choos- 
 ing them by districts — the result of which is, that no one of 
 all the qualified electors of Kentucky votes for more than one 
 of a, court composed of four judges. They are not elected by 
 the State at all- — so far as the court is concerned, there is no 
 State. There is no authority common to the whole tribunal, 
 and to which they all owe obedience. They are the repre- 
 sentatives of distinct communities, formed for the purpose of 
 electing judges, who are to carry out upon the bench the 
 peculiar views of their own constituency, to whom alone they 
 are responsible upon all matters of law or politics involved in 
 the cases which may come before them. We have already 
 briefly examined the structure of this court, and shown that 
 the convention intended it as a conservative principle — a 
 guard thrown around the terrible experiment they are making. 
 We hope you will excuse us for recapitulating what we have 
 said elsewhere, and for examining the form the convention 
 have given to the supreme court with more particularity, and 
 a narrower scrutiny than heretofore. 
 
 In our first number, we showed the grounds on which the 
 friends of the new constitution vindicate this election of the 
 supreme court by districts — grounds which we also showed, 
 that they abandoned utterly in the constitution of the circuit 
 courts. If, say they, you elected the whole court by the State 
 at large, it would all be responsible to the dominant party in 
 the State, and being reeligible, it would be the slave of that 
 party, a mere political engine in the hands of a ruling faction. 
 Very well, but this is a tremendous admission, say we, against 
 an elective and reeligible judiciary. They proceed to argue, 
 that they have parried the mischief inherent in the system — 
 warded off the danger to which the elective principle, by their 
 own admission, is for ever exposed by the district system. 
 Each judge is responsible only to his own district — the re- 
 maining three are independent as to the fourth district, and 
 so all round. A case comes up from the first district — the 
 argument admits the judge from that district to be unfit to try 
 
OLD GTTAED — JUDICIAEY. 361 
 
 it, for the very sufficient reason that he was chosen hy it, and 
 can be reohosen by it, and therefore will be subjected in his 
 judgment to the ruling influences there. Instead of the law, 
 he will represent the will of his constituents. But, say they, 
 there will be three other judges on the bench exposed to no 
 such influences. Those three will be independent, and can 
 try the cause fairly. But we answer, each of these, three are 
 exposed to the same thing as it regards causes coming from 
 their respective districts. Your conservative scheme, based 
 upon a false and rotten principle, corrupts, necessarily, the 
 whole court. Each of the four judges has a set of causes, 
 coming from his own district, in which he is a partizan, not a 
 judge. Each of the four judges has, therefore, in his hands, 
 the means of purchasing the support of his associates. Says 
 the first judge to the second, third and fourth, " gentlemen 
 justices, here is a cause from my district which my interest 
 requires should be decided in a particular way. One of the 
 parties is very powerful in elections. He is leader of the 
 democratic party — he has a large interest at stake in this 
 cause, and if I go against him, at the next election he goes 
 against me, and I lose my seat on this bench. There is no 
 rivalry among us. Whether you be whig or democrat is im- 
 material. We represent difiierent districts and can not inter- 
 fere with each other. The beaten party in this cause can not 
 hurt you. But remember, that each of you are precisely 
 similarly situated, in relation to causes from your own districts. 
 Let us therefore understand each other. I will go for you if 
 you will go for me. We never can be rivals. We represent 
 different constituents, and if we will only help each other, can 
 perpetuate our own power, and defeat all opposition that may 
 arise against any of us at home, by union and mutual assist- 
 ance here." In a court so constituted, there is no ground for 
 jealousy. It will be the most magnificent theatre for log-roll- 
 ing ever devised. Were they all dependent upon the same 
 constituency — were they all elected by the same people— if 
 three or one were inclined to play the rascal, the other or 
 others could avail themselves of, at least, the aid of a minority 
 
362 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 at home, in the prosecution of an honest opposition. The 
 argument which justifies the dismemberment of the common- 
 wealth, and constitutes a court of four members, nominally 
 elective, and yet no citizen voting for more than one, upon 
 the ground alleged, at. once destroys the representative prin- 
 ciple, and admits that which proves the whole institution cor- 
 rupt. We have already shown the glaring departure from the 
 principle relied upon in this argument in the constitution of 
 the circuit courts. We will not repeat what we have said 
 before. We recur to the eternal truths founded in the nature 
 of things, with which we set out. Truths, from which, the 
 more our adversaries depart, the more they prove. The object 
 of government among civilized men is peace and justi<;e — the 
 security of property, and the protection of personal liberty. 
 Society has the right to govern itself. 
 
 But there are matters common to the whole society — there 
 are other matters peculiar and belonging to individuals of 
 right. The former are political, the latter are judicial. For 
 the regulation and control of the first, a common council — call 
 it a legislature — should be appointed by the free voice of the 
 whole community. No restraints should be imposed upon such 
 a council, except those necessary to protect private and indi- 
 vidual rights and property from aggression. The judicial 
 power being designed to decide, to arbitrate, under a fixed 
 law, between the whole force of the community and a single 
 individual, or between man and man, unequal in strength and 
 influence, should be independent of the parties between whom 
 it is to act as the umpire. In a most especial manner, it should 
 be exempt, not only from the direct control, but from the indi- 
 rect influence, from hope or fear, that may be held out by the 
 ruling power in the State, in whatever hands that power may 
 be placed. Without such a magistracy, there can be no secu- 
 rity for persons or property. Without it liberty is brute license. 
 With it, even in a despotism, there is some security for the 
 fruits of industry, the earning of labor, and the great ends of 
 civilization may be obtained. With a Judiciary independent 
 of the emperor, China were preferable to Athens with judges 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 363 
 
 chosen by the mob. These be our principles, openly avowed, 
 boldly maintained, sustained by history and the experience of 
 mankind, backed by reason and philosophy, and heretofore 
 championed and borne aloft in the terrible struggles through 
 which we have passed, by the votes, the sentiments, and, if 
 need had been, by the valor and the poured out blood of a 
 majority of the people of Kentucky. People of Kentucky! 
 what are, and have been, since your commonwealth was 
 founded, your favorite principles? What, we ask you again, 
 what? "We answer for you, and you will not dispute our re- 
 sponse. The right of instruction and universal suffrage. If 
 you make the Judiciary elective, will not the principles to 
 which you are most attached, apply equally to this branch of 
 magistracy with every other ? You know they will. You know 
 your demagogue reformer would flatter you into support of 
 the new Constitution, by the very hope, that you will here- 
 after rule the courts, as you have ruled the legislature. In 
 every case, be it treason, felony, or the right of property — a 
 will upon which a large estate may be depending — whatever 
 the feeling, real or supposed, of the people may be — the judge, 
 the future representative of the people, bound by the will of 
 his constituents, and deriving his power from the voice of 
 universal suffrage, will be bound, not by the law, not by a long 
 course of adjudications, but by that will and that voice. 
 
 Can you, gentlemen of Kentucky — can you be caught with 
 this bate? There is a hook under it against which you have 
 struggled for twenty-six years, within our memory, and strug- 
 gled manfully and triumphantly. You have ruled yourselves, 
 and you have ruled yourselves gloriously, prosperously, against 
 all the principles contained in this infernal document. If we 
 were inclined to be personal, we could very clearly show you 
 the prime actors in this murderous tragedy — actors against 
 whom it were easy, by past memories, to stir your utmost 
 wrath. We could show you the same, the very same elements, 
 once congregated and arrayed against the principles for which 
 we are contending, under leaders now dead — once more assem- 
 bled under the lead of those then in the ranks, but deeply. 
 
364 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 darkly, terribly imbued with the Jacobin spirit — a spirit re- 
 buked, cowed, crushed by you in 1825 — a spirit "scotched not 
 killed," reappearing under the prominent lead of one then a 
 subaltern, a private — now a President, trampling on, over- 
 throwing^ Attila like, all the monuments erected by his former 
 enemies. 
 
 Is the memory, and the sense, and the experience of Ken- 
 tucky obliterate and lost ? Have we forgotten relief and anti- 
 relief, new and old court, and all the struggles that have 
 followed since? 
 
 We understand — rthe Old Guard well understand the causes 
 which led to the call of this convention — and others, we fear, 
 will understand, before we are through with it, the dangers of 
 that call. The majority in Kentucky, were in the minority in 
 the Union ; the minority in Kentucky were in the majority 
 in the Union. The minority here, of course, called out for a 
 change. Aristocracy was the cry. They mistook the cause 
 of their local grievances, as the Whigs did their national. 
 Whigs and Democrats are, in America, (the Guard feaxs no 
 body, and speaks truth,) like Democrats and Aristocrats in 
 Greece, Plebeian and Patrician in Rome, Guelf and Ghibeline 
 in Italy, Whig and Tory in England, Royalist and Republican, 
 Republican and Jacobin, Jacobin and Conservative in France — 
 eternally seeking power, and vindicating their claim to power, 
 by an appeal to the only legitimate source of power — the foun- 
 tain of justice. 
 
 Human nature is always the same, and the Guard draws its 
 maxims from the philosophy of mankind. Our principle is, 
 (as we will demonstrate in the progress of our paper, if we 
 have not already done it,) that men in the civilized state are 
 necessarily, by the doom of nature, unequal. That the object 
 of all law is to preserve equality of right, under inequality of 
 condition; and that this can only be achieved by a system of 
 fixed jurisprudence, interpreted by an independent judiciary. 
 We have heretofore explained our idea of what an independent 
 judiciary means. We shall even yet enlarge upon that sub- 
 ject, when we come to consider the legislative power, as treated 
 
OLD GUAKD — JTJDICIAEY. 365 
 
 by the new Constitution. We profess to believe in democratic 
 progress. We trust, (God knows we do,) to that same pro- 
 gressive democratic power, for the ultimate liberation of man- 
 kind, from every chain but that of reason and prudence — 
 from all thralldom but that which the divinity of justice and 
 truth within him, necessarily imposes. 
 
 We have reasoned at some length, and with great pains, 
 against a party who are determined to overthrow what we con- 
 sider the true commonwealth. Do they answer us? Not at 
 all, except by clamor and abuse. " Office-holders," " Old Hunk- 
 ers," " Emancipationists." This is their whole cry — their only 
 defense. 
 
 Do they interpret the new Constitution to the people ? Not 
 a bit of it— they suppress the paper. They resort to clamor. 
 They cry out the right of the people. We acknowledge that 
 dominion. Ah ! say they, you deny the right of the majority 
 to rule — you dispute the capacity of the people, of mankind, 
 for self-government — you have thrown yourselves full across 
 the path of popular progress, the march of the democratic 
 principle in government. 
 
 What mean these men by self-government? Do they mean 
 the right of each human being to control himself, to regulate 
 his own actions, to shape his own conduct, by his own wUl, 
 unconstrained by any other being? If so, how happens it 
 upon the principle that men, all men,, have a natural right to 
 govern themselves — how happens it that a majority have a 
 right to govern a minority, any more than a minority have a 
 right to govern a majority ? This rule of a majority is 
 not self-government, it is the government of other people. 
 Suppose thirty men thrown together, whence do sixteen of 
 them derive their right to make the other fourteen obey their 
 will ? Upon the principle bf self-government, the sixteen 
 would have a perfect right to rule themselves; but surely 
 upon the same principle the fourteen would have the same 
 right to rule themselves. Suppose a million of men, or any 
 other number, how happens it upon the principle of self-gov- 
 ernment, that of these, five hundred thousand and one, have the 
 
366 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 right against their consent and will, to subject the remaining 
 four hundred and ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and 
 ninety-nine, to whatever rule of action this larger number may 
 choose to compose? Is this self-government in the majority? 
 Certainly not, it is the government of others, against their 
 consent. It is the subjection of the will of one set of men to 
 the rule of another set of men. All government is the exer- 
 cise of power by a portion of men over others. When men 
 congregate together and form a social union, they agree to 
 abandon the natural principle of self-government, and to sub- 
 mit to a control out of memselves, a control which is the re- 
 sult of convention and compact, and not of any fixed right. 
 According to reason and nature, each man is his own master, 
 with a perfect right to employ his own strength and faculties, 
 for his own support, and in pursuit of his own ideas of hap- 
 piness, but every other man having exactly the same right, 
 there might arise collisions. Liberty, either natural or social, 
 consists in the right in each individual, to do exactly what 
 pleases himself, to regulate his own conduct according to his 
 own will, provided he does not interfere with precisely the 
 same right in others. The rational end of society is to render 
 this liberty more perfect and secure. It should be an ar- 
 rangement by which the strength of the whole is pledged to 
 secure the rights of each, by which the weak should be pro- 
 tected against the power of the strong. In entering into 
 society, men have a right to establish any form of government 
 they please. Monarchy is as legitimate as aristocracy, and 
 aristocracy as legitimate as democracy. It is a question of 
 prudence. With the great end of the social union in view, to 
 wit, the security of property and the protection of individuals, 
 the maintenance of justice and peace, it is a matter of sound 
 discretion for the societies of men, to throw themselves into 
 any form best calculated to attain these objects. We are met 
 perpetually with the question, have not the people a right to 
 elect their own oificers of every sort — judges, sheriifs, consta- 
 bles, clerks, every thing? Certainly they have, if they choose 
 so to arrange in their fundamental law. But have they not a 
 
OLD GUARD — JUDICIARY. 367 
 
 right not to elect them, if they choose, and if they judge 
 their own peace, safety, property, and liberty will be better 
 secured by a different mode of appointment? You have all 
 power over the subject. It is a matter of prudence and dis- 
 cretion. It is for you to determine what mode will best 
 secure the great ends of society, the rights and the liberties 
 of individuals, and your right and power to adopt and pursue 
 it can neither be disputed nor resisted. 
 
 THE OLD GUARD, 
 isro. ^^. 
 
 The Legislative Department — Ben Hardin — Putlio Debt — Internal Improve- 
 ment—The Public Expenditure — Sinking Fund. 
 
 We commence to-day another branch of that mighty subject, 
 which still stretches in unmeasured length before us. In imi- 
 tation of our correspondent, "the Citizen," we put at the head 
 of our leading article the matters of which we shall treat. 
 We offer you the bill of fare, before we invite you to such a 
 table as our means enable us to spread. 
 
 A very slight examination of the Constitution, and the most 
 cursory glance at the published debates of the Convention, will 
 satisfy any one that the Convention aimed their heaviest blows, 
 that their real rage was directed against those branches of the 
 old government heretofore elective and popular. They have 
 not exactly assailed the representative principle in terms — but 
 in the reorganization of the representative departments, they 
 have manifested the most profound detestation and contempt 
 for its results, after an experience of fifty years. 
 
 With the judges, sheriffs, clerks, jailers, constables, asses- 
 sors, they have no fault to find, except that they have not 
 been elective. The lists of property have been fairly taken, 
 
 and valuations fairly made, th& revenue faithfully collected and 
 24 
 
368 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 paid in, law process impartially executed, persons liable to im- 
 prisonment strictly confined according to the law, the records 
 fairly kept, and justice faithfully administered. The whole 
 machinery, judicial and ministerial, has worked steadily and 
 smoothly upon the principle established by the Constitution of 
 1799. If the legislation has been excessive, confused, contra- 
 dictory — if the taxes have been oppressive and unnecessary — 
 if the expenditure of public money has been wasteful — if a 
 wretched and useless system of public works has been pro- 
 jected as the mere means of creating unnecessary ofiSces, ex- 
 tending executive patronage, and wasting the substance of the 
 people upon worthless pets and favorites — a standing army of 
 lazy drones, producing nothing, and consuming the treasure 
 wrung from the toil and the sweat of the people, and which 
 ought to support and to stimulate the labor which created it — 
 should these things all be true, where lies the fault ? Can the 
 judges and the sheriffs, the clerks and the constables, do any 
 act of legislation? Can they alter, modify, repeal the stat- 
 utes? Can they impose taxes? Can they borrow money? 
 These things are sovereign, these powers are legislative. The 
 old Constitution, following in the track of free and popular 
 government, so considered them, and left them all — all that 
 relates to finance and legislation, to public policy, and public 
 administration — in the hands of the people themselves, to be 
 devised and executed according to their will and pleasure, 
 their instructions, their judgment, nay, even their caprice, by 
 magistrates freely chosen by themselves at short intervals, 
 and directly responsible — removable, too, without accusation 
 or trial — removable by reelection of others, at the mere pleas- 
 ure of the master. Representation and taxation, said they, 
 go together. The money of the people is their own, it can be 
 raised in any quantity and for any purpose which they may 
 direct, through representatives thus chosen, and bound to obe- 
 dience by every motive which can sway the human mind. 
 Were they mistaken ? Is the principle of self-government, 
 through a representation purely democratic, so disastrous a 
 failure, that the people can not dispose of their own property? 
 
BEN. HAKDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 369 
 
 or are they so incompetent to choose from among themselves, 
 persons properly qualified to execute these powers, that the 
 powers themselves must be abandoned ? Are all the guards 
 thrown around the principle of democratic representation by 
 the nature of things and the organization of men, found so 
 utterly impotent, that the principle itself must be thrown 
 away, or so crippled as to render it impossible for the com- 
 munity, in this form, to direct its own means for its own ad- 
 vancement ? If so, there is no hope in this world. The man 
 or the community of men, who can not, through their own 
 agents, manage their own affairs, direct their own means, is 
 powerless and a slave, and requires a master, or he is an 
 idiot, and demands a guardian. 
 
 But be it so. What shall we think of the celestial geniu3 
 which has penetrated, and the bold spirit which has disclosed 
 this terrible secret to mankind? When questioned as to the 
 remedy, it is all too true is his reply. This representative 
 government is a sad affair. These annual agents of yours, in 
 the course of less than twenty years, have brought you to the 
 very verge of ruin — the very brink of perdition. This legis- 
 lative power, of which we were all once so proud, is the 
 most stealthy, dangerous, infernal contrivance, that the wit of 
 rogues ever devised to gull and ruin fools with. I once 
 thought as some of you do. " I was myself one of your rep- 
 resentatives, in one house or the other, during a period com- 
 mencing in 1810, and ending in 1833. I have no doubt dur- 
 ing that whole period, I voted every year against a bill to 
 take the sense of the people on the proposition to call a con- 
 vention. I left the legislature, however, in 1833. Every thing 
 was then straight, and right, and fair. It was in 1834, th^ 
 very year I quitted the legislature, that all this deviltry began. 
 In 1833, your taxes were GJ cents on one hundred dollars, 
 yielding you a revenue of $64,758 58. This tax, with some 
 trifles in the treasury, as tavern licenses, tax on seals, on legal 
 instruments, etc., etc., sustained this government from 1792 uji 
 to 1834 inclusive. Well, an economical set of men got into 
 power, and somehow or other, without your knowing any thing 
 
370 T. r. MAESHALL. 
 
 about the matter, by little and little, your revenue and ex- 
 penses have risen in this year, 1850, to $562,000. 'Was there 
 ever such an increase?' They have raised your taxes from 
 6J cents to 19 cents ; and this is the result. But this is not 
 half. These representatives of yours, these delegates of the 
 people, have run you in debt about seven millions by little 
 and little, and without your knowing any thing about the 
 matter." (Jack Falstaff said once, "Lord how this world is 
 given to lying." We throw our own comments into paren- 
 thesis, after the manner of reporters.) "As Tom Paine said 
 to Lord North," (our champion studied the Bible under Tom 
 Paine,) "you know, in overloading a horse, it is the last feather 
 you put on that breaks his back. I will give you the philoso- 
 phy of all this, it is of no use to know facts, without under- 
 standing the reason of them." (Now we have it.) "There is 
 an eternal lust in mankind to grasp at power," (there is, is 
 there, Mr. Philosopher ?) " there is a love of domination, a love 
 of gold, a love of governing." (Any other lusts you know of, 
 old gentleman?) "I remember reading a publication published 
 by Matthew Lyon, when he was a candidate for Congress, and 
 in it he said : (This is charming :) 
 
 " There is such a tincture in the blood 
 That all men would be tyrants if they could, 
 And if they did not their neighbor devour, 
 It is not from want of wiU, but want of power." 
 
 And there never was said a truer thing than that. Well, what 
 is the remedy? Will you let the Wagon go on in the old road? 
 No — what must be done? What caused the revolution in the 
 time of Charles I? Why, excessive taxation; by his en- 
 deavoring to force money out of the people under the head of 
 " ship money." They rebelled and fought him on many a 
 bloody field, and it ended by bringing the head of Charles to 
 the block. What caused the revolution in France in the days 
 of Louis XVI? Among the many leading and prominent 
 causes was the deranged condition of the finances of the coun- 
 try, and the expenses attendant on providing for the numerous 
 hangers-On on the government. What are we to do here? Are 
 
BEN HAKDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 371 
 
 we to have a revolution? No,, because a revolution is an 
 anomaly in a republic." (Our champion of reform is an his- 
 torian we know — he knows there was a bloody revolution in 
 England in 1640, and in France in 1789, when a couple of 
 fellows, they call kings, lost their heads ; but this last remark, 
 " that a revolution in a republic is an anomaly," is news to us ; 
 but we will compare notes with this most profound of living 
 philosophers after a while — let him proceed.) He proceeds : 
 
 "No, we are to have a recurrence to first principles ; then, 
 and not until then, will the people be enabled to brush from 
 off their coffers the miserable flies that have been sucking 
 their blood for years. We must reorganize the government; 
 we must reconstruct it ; we must make a new constitution, 
 (applause, says the reporter,) and by doing that we will drive 
 these old hunkers out. I will give the meaning of the word 
 hunker. There had been a set of men in New York, like in 
 Kentucky, who held their offices, and held on — and held on — 
 and there was no getting them loose ; they were the greatest 
 patriots that ever lived." (Laughter, says the reporter; and 
 we think there was cause. The people must have been think- 
 ing of the- convention. The way they hang on to office is a 
 sin.) "Well, a convention was got up for the purpose of 
 establishing a system of rotation in office." (Ah ! That is it, 
 is it? We thought it was to correct legislative abuses, and 
 surely there is rotation enough there.) " A young lawyer got 
 up in the convention and made a flaming speech in favor of 
 the rotation plan, (old ones do the same in Kentucky,) and 
 finally he said, that these old office-holders, or hunkers, were 
 like rats in a barn, they could not be driven out, nor tram- 
 pled, nor beaten out; so the only way to get them out was 
 to burn them out. But he would not burn the corn ;" (oh, 
 Lord ! No, the new rats might suffer, poor things, for winter 
 provisions:) "he would build a new barn and remove the 
 corn into it, and then he would burn the old barn. Thence 
 the word barnburner arose. There never was a more thorough 
 barnburner than I," (we believe you, 'pon honor ; Van Buren, 
 No. 1, was a chap of the same sort,) " although I have held 
 
372 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 an oflSce." (Ah!) "J was Secretary of State under Gov. 
 Owsley." (The devil, you say.) Egad, we thought you 
 ■would have steered clear of that rock, under such a press of 
 canvas as you were carrying. , You have run foul of your- 
 self. You have been in office, eh! my barnburner? and how 
 did you get out? Were you driven out, or trampled out, or 
 beaten out? Was there any tar burnt under your nose, (rats 
 hate tar,) or were there any feathers added, to break the back 
 of such a horse as you. We have no allusion here, of course. 
 We have understood that you hung on as long as possible by 
 the old Constitution, and that it shielded even the like of you, 
 the rotten old thing, from an illegal exercise of executive 
 power; and that it was the people, whom you love and praise 
 so much ; the people, who, in the deep and swelling tide of 
 their awful indignation, rose wave-like under you, broke your 
 holts, as the boys say, and washed, or would have washed you 
 out, if you had not turned tail (rats do n't love water much 
 better than fire) and absquatulated of your own accord. 
 Query. Why did n't you make the secretary of state elective 
 by the people ? They seem to be prime judges of the article. 
 Perhaps as you run from it once, you do n't care about run- 
 ning for it. It is an uncomfortable place any how, and you 
 care not who fills it. We beg pardon for the length of this 
 parenthesis, but we were full, and could not contain ourselves. 
 That last feather broke our back.) " I use the word barn- 
 burner in its metaphorical sense," added Mr. Hardin. 
 
 And here we close our long extraicts from the celebrated 
 speech of that gentleman, (we mean to be polite,) delivered in 
 the capitol at Frankfort on the 25th and 26th of January, 
 and inserted in the second number of the Champion of Re- 
 form. We inserted the last line of our extract, from a sense 
 of justice to an adversary, who seems to have thought it 
 necessary, even after his long account of the pedigree of the 
 word, to make the explanation, in order to protect himself 
 from a supposed confession of the crime of arson. We did 
 not suppose (nor do we imagine his audience were in the least 
 exposed to such a supposition) that he meant to avow himself 
 
BEN. HARDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 373 
 
 literally an incendiary. We knew he was metaphorical — in 
 truth, we had heard this story, as we have most of his, some 
 hundred times before. The figure is a good and apt one. He 
 means to illustrate the idea, not that he would really fire a 
 neighbor's barn, but that he would apply the torch to the 
 constitution of his country — that he would wrap in flames a 
 structure more precious than the Ephesian dome, a temple at 
 whose altar he was wont to worship, in praise of whose glori- 
 ous proportions he used to exhaust his utmost powers of 
 language, which contains within its time-honored walls, and 
 shelters beneath its lofty roof, deposits more precious and 
 costly than all the treasures which Grecian or Asiatic super- 
 stition had heaped upon the shrine of Diana. Ay, we under- 
 stand him, and his motives — he would spread conflagration 
 and death any and every where, to wreak the passions of his 
 vindictive soul, by expelling certain subordinates who are al- 
 lowed to minister within its precincts, so long as they demean 
 themselves according to the law of the temple. No zeal like 
 that of the convert of revenge — no fury like that which 
 scorches the brain and consumes the heart of the renegade 
 from a faith he has professed and deserted ; a cause he has 
 served, and learned to hate. 
 
 Similes are sometimes better than arguments. An apt illus- 
 tration of a thought, drawn from a striking and just resem- 
 blance to something known and familiar, is often more forcible 
 than the naked idea brought forward in the abstract form of 
 logical statement. Mr. Hardin seems to have some confused 
 notion of this sort, and hence he constantly labors in his dis- 
 course, instead of arguments, to employ such figures of speech 
 as his memory has been able to retain. To his imagination 
 he is indebted for nothing but his facts. 
 
 Though no indigenous flower was ever known to spring 
 from the bosom of that cold and sterile soil, and exotics, when 
 planted there, lose all their beauty and their fragrance — still, 
 as the region of mere fiction — in the production of notions 
 which have no type in nature or in truth, it becomes the very 
 mint of invention. Genius has been defined by writers on the 
 
374 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 mind to be the creative faculty ; taste, to be a fine perception 
 of the beautiful ; and wit, the power of combining, by remote 
 and fanciful but striking resemblance, objects apparently dif- 
 ferent. Genius is the spider which draws the material of its 
 web from its own bosom ; taste the bee, which extracts and 
 enjoys the sweets of every flower ; and wit, the subtle artist, 
 who perceives a likeness lost to the common eye, and with the 
 touch of his delicate pencil makes that apparent, palpable, 
 which before was hidden and unknown. The pleasure its ex- 
 hibition aifords is produced by the surprise it excites, com- 
 bined with its truth. Truth is the master element of all 
 intellectual greatness, and in every kind. Mr. Hardin seems 
 to us to possess none of these faculties — yet is he a man of 
 boundless fancy, but his fancy holds the same relation to that 
 noblest power of the mind, imagination, that Baron Munchau- 
 sen sustains to Shakspeare or to Walter Scott. 
 
 But what are we to think of the reasoning of this barn- 
 burner, considering him as a physician called in to ascertain 
 the disease of the State, and to apply a remedy. The machine, 
 says he, is worn out, worthless. We can apply no remedy. 
 You were made up wrong from the beginning. We must 
 reconstruct, and give you a new Constitution. You must die, 
 and resurrect. We will cut you up — put you into Medea's 
 cauldron — reduce you to first principles — your original ele- 
 ments — boil you over again, and yoa will come out rejuvenised, 
 and fitted for a glorious immortality — subject to no further 
 change, and never to require medicine or physician again 
 through all eternity. All very fina, doctor. But before we 
 go through this process of regeneration — before we venture 
 on this untried state of being — before we dofi" this present 
 form of vitality we wear — tell us, if it please your wisdom, 
 the fatal poison that lurks in our present being, and the anti- 
 dote in the new vital organization, upon which you rely 
 against the recurrence of similar disorders. Perhaps, after 
 all, we are not as badly oif as you imagine. We are subject 
 at times to disorders — but this is the law of life and nature — 
 ■of all life, and of universal nature. We have occasionally 
 
BEN. HAEDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 375 
 
 indulged too much in stimulants; we have sometimes abused 
 things in themselves good; but abstinence and temperance 
 will soon restore us. A slight headache is nothing to die 
 about. Upon the whole, the organs seem vigorous, and well 
 adapted to perform their appropriate functions. It will not 
 do, says the doctor. You must die, and be born again. Un- 
 less you be regenerated, you shall not see my face. But I 
 will tell you what is the matter ; the human heart is sinful 
 above all things, and desperately wicked. In the new Con- 
 stitution we will put it out of your power to take any more 
 stimulants. You have managed your aiFairs through various 
 agents. Some of them have behaved themselves pretty well ; 
 but others have abused your confidence, wasted your property, 
 flattered, gulled, fooled, imposed upon you. The worst of it 
 is, this latter set of rascals are the very class of servants 
 whom, by your present miserable constitution, you appoint 
 yourselves, and who act under your own immediate orders. 
 The fault is, therefore, your own. Now the remedy is, that 
 as you have evidently shown yourselves incapable of choosing 
 proper men to do your business, and guide your larger and 
 more important concerns — and as you can not possibly manage 
 them in person, henceforth they shall not be managed at all. 
 You may still appoint the agents, but they shall do nothing. 
 They shall have opportunity to come together to counsel 
 about your affairs, but very seldom ; and when they do, they 
 shall not be permitted to remain together long enough to plot 
 any mischief. No danger of their running you into debt any 
 more. We will advertise them as having no credit. We will 
 prevent your hurting yourselves hereafter, in spite of you. 
 Now, as to your other agents, who have behaved themselves 
 very well, so far as we know, inasmuch as you have shown 
 yourselves utterly incapable of selecting proper persons in the 
 higher departments of power, you may try your hand on the 
 lower ; but should they play the same game on you, you must 
 stick to it, for, by my wisdom, I swear I will trust to no phy- 
 sician that shall ever come after me. Like Lycurgus, I will 
 bequeath you an everlasting constitution. 
 
376 T, F. MAESHALL. 
 
 The patient has not answered. He is still master of him- 
 self, however, and can dismiss this bold doetor, if he please. 
 
 Mr. Hardin has seduced us by his example into the figura- 
 tive. We mean not to be understood as acquiescing in Mr, 
 Hardin's charges on the government. We will yet find time 
 to lay before you the whole history of the expenditure of the 
 government. We shall do so with the utmost candor. Where 
 there has been fault — and that there has been, there is no 
 doubt — we will candidly admit it. The grossness of his errors, 
 however, shall all be exposed. We will show his own parti- 
 cipation in the legislation which led to that increase of taxa- 
 tion he denounces so heavily, and which he thinks demands a 
 revolution. Perhaps there is not in the world so glaring an 
 example of insincerity as in the brief history Mr. Hardin has 
 given of the expenditures of the government, and her system 
 of taxation since 1792. These are grave and profound mat- 
 ters. We have spme knowledge of them from our own con- 
 nection with the legislative department, during the very period 
 when the taxes were raised, and the debt, or the major part 
 of it, contracted. We have full means of information within 
 our reach. In subsequent numbers, we will sift these matters 
 to the bottom, and lay before you the truth, the simple truth, 
 and nothing but the truth. The remainder of the present we 
 must devote to Mr. Hardin, who vaunts himself the author of 
 the Revolution, and is heralded by his party as the Coeur de 
 Lion of Reform. 
 
 We had never expected to have been under obligations to 
 Mr. Ben. Hardin for any thing. But although we are tired 
 enough, as we suppose every one else to be, of this history 
 of the word barnburner — of this joke, so stale, flat, and un- 
 profitable, we are exceedingly indebted to him for one varia- 
 tion he threw into his threadbare jest, in the speech from 
 which we have extracted some portions. "But he would not 
 burn the corn," he said, "he w6uld build a new barn and re- 
 move the corn into it, and then he would burn the old barn." 
 Whether intentionally or not, this figure illustrates most 
 forcibly the motives of Ben. Hardin and the Jacobin party, 
 
BEN. HAEDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 377 
 
 and their ultimate purpose in the novel, and, we hope, most 
 hazardous position they have assumed, in regard to the powers 
 of the convention. We shall take the liberty of employing 
 and carrying out his own metaphor to illustrate our meaning, 
 which we think it does thoroughly. That we may be under- 
 stood thoroughly, we refer to this man's argument upon the 
 question of the recess till the first of June, and will quote 
 literally several passages from it. He says there, " I say that 
 we have the power; that we can adjourn from day to day, if 
 we choose; that we can adjourn for a month, if we choose, or 
 six months, if we choose; but if we ever dissolve, there is an 
 end of it." (See printed Debates, p. 1055, first column near 
 top.) Again : " I rose and read from this book to show that 
 we can not delegate our power, which is given on account of 
 our skill; when an apprentice is bound to a master on ac- 
 count of his skill, and the master dies, he is free ; because he 
 was bound for a particular purpose. A judge can not act by 
 deputy, because he is appointed on account of his skill. A 
 clerk can, because his is a mere ministerial act; but a judge 
 can not appoint a deputy. A legislator can not act by his 
 deputy. Why? Because he is sent here on account of his 
 skill, etc. What do we propose to do? Why we propose to 
 appoint another set of gentlemen to make this very thing 
 which we are sent here to make. We are to submit our work 
 to the people, and they vote upon it. Can they make a consti- 
 tution? No, sir, etc." (See page 1079, 2d column, near top.) 
 Mr. Hardin gives his usual account of his own great feats, 
 and their astonishing results. These details are in no wise 
 interesting, except as illustrative of the particular character 
 of the man. We can not forbear, however, to give you a 
 specimen of the true Falstaffian style. "/ have had," he 
 says, " this question very much at heart for a long time — a 
 long time. / repeatedly mentioned it in public speeches made 
 last summer, and where ever / named it, it met with universal 
 approbation. I knew the opposition which the constitution 
 would have to encounter. When / first started this question 
 of a convention, it was doubtful whether we would have a 
 
378 T. F. MARSHALI,. 
 
 majority or not, etc. When I first went to Washington, there 
 was William Booker, and the judge his brother, who mounted 
 the rostrum and spoke against me. In Green, Judge Buckner 
 wag present, and I expected they would mount me. But at 
 last, they all agreed with me, except the clerk and his family. 
 Then I spoke the whole week in Nelson county, and on 
 Saturday night at Bardstown I was haunted by the clerks 
 and their families. On Monday morning a clerk asked the 
 judges at a precinct to open the polls at 8 o'clock, and when 
 the judge asked what is the reason, he answered, to prevent 
 HARDIN from speaking, for he will get the people to vote 
 for a convention. After I spoke, every man but three voted 
 for a convention." (See page 1080.) 
 
 We question whether before such an assembly, and on such 
 an occasion, human vanity ever produced any thing like this. 
 There is one, and but one important statement in it, and that 
 is, that he was the author of the revolution. He evidently 
 had great influence in the convention, especially on this ques- 
 tion of the recess. 
 
 He afterwards says, "We have all the opposers of the con- 
 stitution to fight. We have all the emancipationists, and all 
 the office holders for life, or a great body of them, to fight. 
 These will all combine, and thousands and thousands will be 
 raised to defeat us." At this stage, Mr. Marshall, of Flem- 
 ing, inquired of Mr. Hardin if the people should reject the 
 new constitution, and the convention reassemble in June, 
 whether it were competent for this convention to make a new 
 constitution or amend their work ? 
 
 Mr. Hardin said " we should meet with the same potvers as at 
 first." (See page 1080.) 
 
 On the next page Mr. Hardin proceeds with these remarka- 
 ble words : 
 
 " Sir, I was unhappy from the day this convention was 
 called till last night. I was afraid all these discordant inter- 
 ests, the emancipationists, the old hunkers, and the old consti- 
 tution men, would combine and raise money — which is th& 
 
BEN. HARDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 379 
 
 sinews of war, politically as well as civilly — and no man would 
 subscribe one dollar for the constitution, and that they would 
 mash it up, A dark cloud hung over our prospects till last 
 night. The lightning seemed to flash and the thunder to roll; 
 but thank God it is past, and I see the bright sun of Auster- 
 litz now bursting on the people. Yes, sir, the bright sun is 
 shining on us, and as sure as the Lord liveth we will have a 
 constitution, and the people will take it. Where will be the 
 emancipationists? Will they undertake to kill you, friend 
 Meriwether? (Laughter.) Never, they will not be a thorn 
 in your side. Where will be the old hunkers? They will 
 swear they were with us from the first. Where will be the 
 old constitution men? Like the rest of the horses when they 
 ran against Flying Childers, they will be no where in the 
 race. We will have an easy time of it if we determine to 
 come back here. Did not the world say that Sampson was a 
 fool for permitting his hair to be cut off by that woman De- 
 lilah? Why? He was shorn of his strength. If we adjourn 
 sine die, we shall be like Sampson with his hair cut off." 
 
 We have laid before you these long extracts from this re- 
 markable speech, not for the purpose of responding here to 
 the monstrous propositions they contain as to the powers of 
 the convention, and the relations that body hold to you. We 
 do it to satisfy you that he maintained them distinctly, and 
 carried his point too, in the face of the strenuous opposition 
 of the very ablest men in the house. These propositions are — 
 First, that the convention has the power of continuing its 
 existence indefinitely. There is no term to their ofiice save 
 their own will. Secondly, that when they meet in June, even 
 should you reject the constitution, or if you adopt it, as it is, 
 their power is as complete over the subject as when they met 
 in October. And these propositions rest upon a principle never 
 before broached in this country, so far as we have heard or 
 read, that a constitution submitted to the people for their 
 ratification or rejection, can derive no obligatory force from 
 the one, and is not in the least invalidated by the other. It 
 
380 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 seems to us, people of Kentucky, you should look into these 
 things. This man claims to be the leader in this revolution, 
 the author of the movement, the conqueror of the hattle, 
 which was in fact no battle at all. The question went by de- 
 fault. From various concurring causes, the people of Ken- 
 tucky in 1847-48 were willing to submit their constitution 
 to the revision of a convention, reserving to themselves the 
 right, by pledges taken from every candidate in the State, to 
 submit it to the people — reserving thereby to themselves, as 
 the sovereign, not the delegate — the master, not the appren- 
 tice — the principal, not the agent — the right to approve or re- 
 ject the instrument by which they were to be governed. 
 
 Mr. Hardin says he had thought of these things a long, 
 long time. He says "he was unhappy from the day when 
 this convention was called, till last night," the night it was de- 
 termined to reassemble in June — the celebrated night in which 
 the principles for which he contended were established, so 
 far as they could be established by that body. He tells us 
 the reason of the movement, in terms not to be mistaken. 
 He tells us the grounds upon which he had long determined 
 to reverse the precedent set by Washington, Madison, Mar- 
 shall, etc., etc., for all of whom he professes the utmost re- 
 spect, but all of whom he contends were mistaken in this 
 matter, of the binding character of a ratification by the peo- 
 ple. The Federal 'Convention, with General Washington for 
 its President, equal, we think, to the President of the late 
 convention — we mean no disparagement to Mr. Guthrie — the 
 Federal Convention never dreamed that they must reassemble 
 and give to the instrument they had submitted, its vital 
 energy. Under this argument, the national constitution is, in 
 fact, a dead letter. We will not cite examples. We have said 
 we would not argue the proposition. The astute lawyer, who 
 has discovered a resemblance between master and apprentice 
 on one side, and the convention and the people on the other — 
 who thinks that because the convention were appointed by the 
 people on account of skill — (ye gods, what a basis for the 
 argument) — therefore they are converted into an eternal sov- 
 
BEN. HARDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 381 
 
 ereignty, and the people who gave the power, or rather lent 
 it, are merely "another set of gentlemen," (this is his lan- 
 guage,) to whom they can not impart or delegate it, because 
 gentlemen of their skill can not act by deputy — the people of 
 Kentucky — you, ye proud and jealous sovereigns, the deputy 
 of James Guthrie and Ben. Hardin, in the ratification of 
 your fundamental law ! ! This astute lawyer, however, has con- 
 descended to explain the real grounds which urged him to so 
 portentous a position. It is to these grounds that we wish to 
 call your earnest attention. He says that the opposition to 
 the constitution they have made, will be great and formidable. 
 He cites the elements of that opposition, and hurls the venom 
 of his infernal malignity — pours the whole torrent of his 
 devilish epithets upon each and all, yet admits that the new 
 constitution would have been beaten, unless the convention 
 had retained, notwithstanding the submission, the absolute 
 power over the subject in their own hands. Had they ad- 
 journed sine die after the completion of their work, and sub- 
 mitted it fairly and fully, and finally to the people, he admits, 
 in distinct terms, it would have been beaten. They would have 
 been like Sampson, shorn of his hair. As it is, they are revel- 
 ing in the full might of their gigantic power. The hosts of 
 the Philistines will be dispersed without striking a blow. And 
 why? And why? Has 4hat opposition, which he admits would 
 have been victorious, had their decision been permitted to be 
 final — has that opposition lost its strength — has it, secretary 
 like, fallen into the lap of some Delilah, to be led forth bound 
 and blind, to make sport for the worshipers of some Dagon 
 Deity? Has its great courage quailed? Has its mighty 
 heart ceased to throb in the cause of constitutional liberty? 
 Oh no? That is not the hope of this scoffer. We will be 
 defeated, because in our case, he says, victory itself were 
 hopeless. Why fight, when even if you conquer, your enemy 
 is master of the citadel? Should you defeat the new consti- 
 tution in May, we meet in June, armed with full power to 
 make such an one as we please, or to rivet this upon you, 
 despite of your struggles and strength. 
 
382 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 This is the subtle contrivance by which the friends of con- 
 stitutional freedom, strong enough to conquer, are to be 
 defeated, because, dispirited from the consciousness that vic- 
 tory will be fruitless, they will not contend. Vain hope -on 
 your part. You know us not. Despair itself only gives a 
 more deadly character to the resistance of the brave. When 
 liberty is threatened with ruin, when every breeze is tainted 
 with oppression, a patriot courage makes no compromise with 
 danger. But we gather hope, fresh, vigorous hope, from your 
 policy and its motive. We are any thing but desperate. This 
 is what Mr. Hardin meant when he said he would not burn 
 the corn ; he would build a new bam, and remove the corn 
 into it ; and then he would burn the old barn. The conven- 
 tion, we know, have not only claimed the right, but exercised 
 it, to pay themselves not only without, but against law. Never 
 does their power cease tiU they adjourn sine die, and that is 
 entirely within their own discretion. The people not only 
 can not control or remove them, but can not even be deputized 
 by them. There never was any thing so tremendous in theory 
 as the power claimed and thus far exercised by this conven- 
 tion. The power over the treasury, the recess till June, are 
 the text — Mr. Hardin's speeches are the commentary. They 
 have built the new barn, and they claim the corn. They have 
 bad a nibble already. It seems from Mr. Hardin's ingenious 
 metaphor (we fear we did injustice to his wit — when we spoke 
 of his want of taste, however, we did not mean his taste for 
 corn) that the two barns are to stand together till all the corn 
 is removed into the new one, and then the old is to be fired. 
 This is precisely the state of the case at present, and this 
 pleasant simile explains the whole transaction. The builders 
 of the new barn evidently mean to hold possession of it. 
 They can not be ousted till the old one is burnt, and they 
 alone can apply the torch. We have, under the figure of 
 these two barns, two governments at once. The one held by 
 the hunkers, constitutional, limited under strict legal re- 
 straints : the other composed of barnburners, absolute, inter- 
 minable, save at their own pleasure, independent of all human 
 
BEN. HARDIN — PUBLIC DEBT, ETC. 383 
 
 authority, save their own, and under the name of corn and 
 old barn, claiming the right, having exercised it in part, and 
 asserting the purpose of drawing, at discretion in future, the 
 money from the treasury. They avow their hunger. Their 
 great leader metaphorically declares this to be the great ob- 
 ject of the revolution. It is a mere question of food among 
 the rats. Corn, corn, corn, is the cry. In the enthusiasm 
 of victory, in the flush of anticipated triumph, Mr. Hardin 
 speaks too plain. He has converted his convention into a 
 Rump Parliament, and thinks there is no Cromwell here with 
 his bayonets to force them from their seats. With all his 
 shallow and pedantic parade of names and dates, I fear he 
 knows little of real history. He has never penetrated into 
 the great deep of moral and political science. He is a man 
 of progress, but he has a long, steep road to travel up, before 
 he is on the level of the knowledge of his own age. He has 
 joined the Jacobins, yet knows little of the real democracy. 
 He aspires to lead — there are abler men of that party, ten to 
 one, than he — they will use, then discard him. Within a 
 narrow and vicious circle, he is a good judge of bad men. A 
 scoffer and a cynic, with no deep moral sense himself, with 
 neither relish nor perception of the sublime and great, he has 
 studied human nature in its shameful parts, and thinks he 
 kiiows the whole anatomy of man. A shrewd man he cer- 
 tainly is, but shrewdness is not wisdom. He thinks every 
 man has his price, and can not conceive of the disinterested 
 at all. He conceives himself a statesman and a philosopher. 
 He is about as much of either as he is of an orator or poet. 
 He could not become the latter, for he has no imagination ; 
 nor the former, for he has no heart. He knows the names 
 of the most celebrated nations of antiquity, and of the more 
 remarkable men who flourished then, and has a smattering of 
 modern history and geography. But of the great and steady 
 movements of human society, and of the causes which have 
 retarded or impelled them, of the real progress of the human 
 understanding, of the political problems which have been, or 
 
 which remain to be solved, of the philosophy of history, or 
 25 
 
384 T. p. MAESHAIili. 
 
 the science of government, he knows nothing. He talks of 
 Charles I, and Hampden, and Cromwell — he knows nothing 
 ahout them. He compares the existing government of Ken- 
 tucky and her system of taxation with the oppressive levy of 
 ship money, and the tyranny of Charles Stuart — he is either 
 very ignorant or very insincere. Professing democracy in the 
 extreme, he has taken ground for his party in opposition to 
 every democratic principle and democratic prejudice. He 
 thinks there is no Cromwell here to hurl him and his Rump 
 Parliament out of doors. He thinks, or at least talks so to 
 the people, that this is a mere squahble among rats — the 
 hunkers and the barnburners — ^the office-holders and office- 
 seekers — and calculates that as but one man holds each office, 
 and ten desire it, the barnburners must carry the day. Of 
 the real proprietors of the barn — the growers and the owners 
 of the corn, who are neither hunkers nor barnburners — ^who 
 are no rats at all, and might not feel inclined to have a fine, 
 stately, capacious old barn, built by their ancestors, which has 
 kept the grain of generations sound and dry, burnt to the 
 ground, merely to get rid of a few old rats who had lived 
 comfortably and grown fat, if you please, on grain which the 
 proprietor never missed — of a few old servants, rather, who 
 had worked well and faithfully for their living, and between 
 whom and their master there was an agreement — a standing 
 law of the estate — that they should not be driven out so long 
 as they behaved themselves. Of these Mr. Hardin has not 
 thought. There is a greater than Cromwell in this land. 
 Rouse that power, and Mr. Hardin will soon see who is master 
 and who is apprentice — who is the principal and who the 
 deputy. Public opinion is the master and the principal here, 
 the supremacy of which reposes upon foundations in this coun- 
 try, dug deeper than those of the palace of the Caesars, and 
 surrounded with instruments of power more irresistible than 
 all the legions of Rome. It is to this we appeal-r-it is upon 
 this we icly for the triumph of reason, and of truth, and of 
 constitutional liberty. 
 
BEN. HAEDIN — SINKING FUND, ETC. 385 
 
 THE OLD GUARD. 
 3sro. "vi. 
 
 This is, perhaps, the heat review of the financial condition of Kentucky, 
 
 during the time it embraces, to be found anywhere. 
 
 Ben. Hardin — The Public Expenditure — Internal Improvement — Public Debt — 
 
 Sinking Fund. 
 
 We resume this week the subjects of our eighth number, 
 then left unfinished. We gave in that paper extracts from 
 various parts of Mr. Hardin's speech, delivered in Frankfort 
 on the 25th and 26th of January, thrown together by ourselves, 
 not exactly in the order in which they appear in the 2d number 
 of the Champion of Reform, from which they were taken, but 
 according to the subject matter to which they relate — and of 
 which we were then treating, to wit : the legislative power. 
 Before we proceed to review, and to correct from authentic 
 sources, the apochryphal account he has there given of the 
 revenue and expenditures of the government from 1792 to the 
 year 1834, we must be permitted to transcribe verbatim, and 
 in the exact connection in which it stands in the report — that 
 portion of the speech upon which we mean to comment — that 
 our readers may understand thoroughly the enormity of his 
 accusations, and the completeness of our answer. Our read- 
 ers may remember to have read the greater part of this ex- 
 tract in the eighth number of the Guard, but as we propose 
 to-day not to deal in personal satire, but to give a detailed 
 and grave answer to the charges by which this man is labor- 
 ing to spur the people of Kentucky into a thorough, and as 
 we most devoutly believe, ruinous revolution in the whole 
 structure of their government, we must lay before you, to- 
 gether with our remarks, though you have seen them before, 
 these remarkable statements. Mr. Hardin pretends to great 
 knowledge and accuracy in his statistics and figures. He as- 
 sumes to have made the finances, the revenue, the expendi- 
 tures of the government, his particular study, and for the very 
 purpose of enlightening you upon the subject of its stupen- 
 
386 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 dous corruptions. Many persons believe that a man in his 
 position, and of his aspirations after reputation and influence, 
 ■would not dare to misrepresent facts, open to the examination 
 of any one, and spread upon the archives of the State. 
 Whether he has done so or not, will more fully appear by 
 noting and comparing his statements with the public records. 
 He proceeds, in the passage which we extract entire, to give 
 the following history of the expenditures of the government, 
 and for the purpose of inducing the people to overthrow their 
 present constitution. He says : 
 
 "In a republic, the people did not revolutionize, but there 
 was a recurrence to first principles, and there was a recon- 
 struction of the government. As in the governments we 
 found in Europe, the hunkers hung on until the taxation be^ 
 came so excessive that the people would rise in their strength 
 and revolutionize the condition of their government. What 
 caused the revolution in the time of Charles I? Why, ex- 
 cessive taxation; by his endeavoring to force money out of 
 the people under the head of 'ship money.' They rebelled, 
 and fought him on many a bloody field, and it ended by 
 bringing the head of Charles to the block. What caused the 
 revolution in France in the days of Louis XVI? Among the 
 many leading arid prominent causes was the deranged con- 
 dition of the finances of the country, and the expenses attend- 
 ant on providing for the numerous hangers-on, on the gov- 
 ernment. What were they to do here ? Were they to have a 
 revolution ? No, because a revolution in a republic would be 
 an anomaly. No, they were to have a recurrence to first 
 principles; then, and not until then, will the people be 
 enabled to brush from off" their coff'ers the miserable flies that 
 had been sucking their blood for years. (Applause.) 
 
 " He would refer to a few of the expenses of this govern- 
 ment. The revenue collectable by the sherifis in 1829, was 
 $61,357 05; in 1830, $66,309 98; in 1831, $62,351 44; in 
 1832, $70,598 82; in 1833, $64,758 58. Now, up to, and 
 umtil the end of 1834, the revenue tax collected never ex- 
 
BEN. HAEDIKT — SINKING FUND, ETC. 387 
 
 ceeded $74,000 a year. They might hegin at 1792, and come 
 down year after year, and they would find that the expenses 
 of the government were steady, and provided for by that 
 amount of revenue. Besides which there were some inciden- 
 tal taxes in the treasury; as tavern licenses, tax on seals, on 
 legal instruments, etc., etc. Those incidental receipts, together 
 with the regular revenue, sustained the government from 1792 
 up to 1834, inclusive. Well, an economical set of men got 
 into power. The expenses of the government in 1834, were 
 $74,119 93; in 1835, |124,518 80; in 1836, $139,381 02; 
 in 1837, 169,864 35; in 1838, $205,783 62; in 1839, $218,- 
 363 53; in 1840, $255,009 76; in 1841, $261,898 98; in 
 1842, $370,843 05; in 1843, $325,413 88; in 1844, $284,- 
 084 45; in 1845, $315,413 35; in 1846, $348,744 38; in 
 1847, $350,838 39; in 1848, $346,000 22; in 1849, $415,- 
 004 20. 
 
 "Prom that period (1834) the expenses increased continu- 
 ously, until at last the expenses for the present year were 
 estimated at $562,000. Was there ever such an increase? 
 Beginning in 1835, and in fifteen years running up from 
 $74,000 to $562,000. How was it done ? Why, by increas- 
 ing the taxation from 6i to 19 "cents, from time to time put- 
 ting ou a little of the load. By what else? By taxing 
 spectacles, which they had a foolish fancy to have made of 
 gold; their watches were taxed; carriages, if their ladies had 
 grown too old or fleshy to ride on horseback, were taxed ; and 
 buggies were also taxed. And not only that, but by increas- 
 ing and diversifying the objects of taxation, every thing they 
 possessed was taxed, with a very small exception. Horses 
 were once taxed, but now they were taxed higher ; their cattle 
 were taxed, and he (Mr. H.) supposed, if they had a dollar 
 in their pockets, it would be taxed; but it was well taxed 
 already; and, before long, they would have their hearths 
 taxed, as they used to be in Great Britain ; and, finally, they 
 •would tax; the very means by which the light of heaven was 
 let in upon them. 
 
 " Well, what was the remedy ? Would they let the old 
 
388 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 ■wagon go on in the old road? No. What must be done? 
 They must reorganize the government; they must reconstruct 
 it ; they must make a new Constitution, (applause ;) and, by 
 doing that, they would drive those old hunkers out. He 
 would give the meaning of the word hunker. There had 
 been a set of men in New York — like in Kentucky — ^who held 
 to their offices, and held on, and held on ; there was no get- 
 ting them loose ; they were the greatest patriots that ever 
 lived. (Laughter.) Well, a convention was got up for the 
 purpose of establishing a systetn of rotation in offices. A 
 young lawyer got up in the convention and made a flaming 
 speech in fa;vor of the rotation plan ; and finally, he said, 
 ' that those old office-holders or hunkers were like rats in a 
 barn, they could not be driven out, nor tramped, nor beaten 
 out ; 80 the only way to get them out was to burn them out. 
 But he would not burn the corn ; he would build a new barn 
 and remove the corn into it, and then he would burn the old 
 barn.' Prom thence the word barnburner arose. There 
 never was a more thorough barnburner than he, (Mr. H.,) 
 although he had held an office. He was secretary of state 
 under Gov. Owsley. He used the word barnburner in its 
 metaphorical sense. 
 
 "There was no way of getting rid of those old hunkers, 
 unless the people reconstructed and made anew their govern- 
 ment from beginning to end. There were other things he 
 wanted to see done. He wanted to see the State debt paid." 
 
 You can not fail to observe that he likens the system of 
 taxation in Kentucky, and the financial embarrassments grow- 
 ing out of it, both in principle and oppressiveness, to the 
 tyrannic exactions and hopeless confusion, the consequence of 
 the same thing in England, in the 17th, and in France in the 
 18th century, under Charles Stuart, in the first instance, and 
 Louis of Bourbon, the 16th of the name, in the second. Ac- 
 cording to him, the experiment of a republic, purely repre- 
 sentative, has, in fifty years, brought a free people to the same 
 practical result which an absolute monarchy of a thousand 
 
BEN. HAEDIK — SINKING FUND, ETC. 389 
 
 years standing in France, had at last attained, and an arbi- 
 trary line of prijices of some seven hundred years had reached 
 after that interval in England. It is a case to justify such 
 revolutions as he thinks a republic alone can undergo — ^to 
 wit, the overthrow, without blood and by the deliberate voice 
 of the people, the constitution of the State, and to return to 
 what he calls first principles. We have been examining these 
 principles, to which he would carry us back in the preced- 
 ing numbers of the Guard. We would only remark, that this 
 is a queer sort of progress which he recommends ; it re- 
 minds us of the movement which the fellow said he made at 
 the battle of Guildford — he advanced backward some distance. 
 But it is not with the principles of the new Constitution we 
 now have to do, but with Mr. Hardin's facts, upon which he 
 justifies the havoc which the convention have made, he lead- 
 ing, of all that we in Kentucky have been in the habit of 
 considering as constituting a republic. 
 
 You will remark that Mr. Hardin gives first a statement of 
 the revenue collectable by the sheriffs, the proceeds of the 
 taxes, from 1829 to 1834, beginning in the former year with 
 $61,357 05, and ending in the latter year with $74,000 iu 
 round numbers. You will further remark that Mr. Ben. Har- 
 din states distinctly, that the expenses of the government 
 were defrayed out of this amount of revenue, with some inci- 
 dental taxes, such as tavern licenses, tax on seals, etc., which 
 he does not consider worth estimating. We must repeat the 
 passage, in which he alleges distinctly, after Stating the 
 amount of the revenue each year, that that amount limited the 
 expenditure of the, government. " They might begin at 1792, 
 and come down year after year, and they would find the ex- 
 penses of the government were steady, and provided for hy 
 that amount of revenue. Besides which, there were some inci- 
 dental taxes in the treasury ; as tavern licenses, tax on seals, 
 on legal instruments, etc., etc. These incidental receipts, to- 
 gether with the regular revenue, sustained the government 
 from 1792 up to 1,834 inclusive." Starting, then, from this 
 basis of $74,000 in 1834, he gives us a progressive increase 
 
390 T. F. MAESHAIiL. 
 
 of what he calls expense, till in 1850 it swells to $562,000, 
 thus rising in the ordinary expenses of government, in the 
 course of fifteen years, from $74,000 to $562,000. He in- 
 quires into the cause of this great increase of revenue and 
 expense, and ascribes it solely to the stealthy march of taxa- 
 tion, rising, by little and little, from 6 J to 19 cents on the 
 hundred dollars. We are thus particular, even to tediousness, 
 that you may comprehend this man before we proceed to 
 answer him in every particular of his statements. 
 
 On the 26th of October, Mr. Hargis called, by resolution 
 of the Convention, on the second auditor, for a tabular state- 
 ment of the receipts and expenditures, annually, of the gov- 
 ernment of the State of Kentucky, from the year 1823 until 
 the end of the year 1849, showing the receipts and expendi^ 
 tures from each source. Mr. Page, the second auditor, fur- 
 nished a tabular statement the next day, running back to 1829, 
 with an apology for going back no further, with which Mr. 
 Hargis was satisfied. Mr. Hardin begins with the year 1829, 
 and cites with an approximation to accuracy, the receipts from 
 the sheriflFs for each year. There is no doubt he took his state- 
 ments from the auditor's table furnished to the Convention. 
 That table will be found on page 111 of the Journal of the 
 Convention. On page 112 is given the total expenditure of 
 each year, and the objects of the expenditure. From these, 
 we think, we will convict the gentleman. 
 
 For the year 1829, as you have seen, Mr. Hardin states 
 the revenue collectable by the sheriffs to have been $61,357 05, 
 and tells the people of Kentucky that that limited the expenses 
 of the government for the year. The auditor's table shows 
 $61,390 05. The difference is trivial, and was, no doubt, an 
 error in transcribing. But the table shows a total revenue 
 from all sources of $154,065 80 cents — and gives the sources 
 thus : from clerks, $11,494 73 ; misqellaneous, including sur- 
 plus revenue. State bonds sold, etc., $81,175 02. This exhibits 
 a difference between the actual revenue of the State, and the 
 sum to which it is limited by Mr. Hardin, of $92,669 75. He 
 must have known better — the tables were before him — and this 
 
BEN. HAEDIN — SINKING FUND, ETC. 391 
 
 suppression was merely for the purpose of deceiving you, and 
 Calumniating the government. If you will refer ts the Journal 
 of the House of Representatives, 1839-40, page 33, you will 
 see the several sources of this revenue more minutely stated — 
 they are as follows : 
 
 Bank of Kentucky, for distribution of stock, $29,835 00 
 
 Profits of the Bank of Commonwealth, . . . 23,116 00 
 
 Sales of lands west of Tennessee river, . . . 23,196 15 
 
 General receipts of revenue, vacant lands, etc., 77,917 90 
 
 Total, $154,065 80 
 
 Examine the expenditure of the same year, at page 112 of 
 the Journal of the Convention, and you will find it amounting 
 to $177,578 16. If you will examine the more minute report 
 of 1839-40, you will find there was a balance against the 
 treasury of f 30,958 09 — on account of money overpaid by the 
 treasurer on the 10th October, the year before — there having 
 been in that year a deficit to that amount in the revenue from 
 all sources. Add this to the annual expenditure of the year 
 1829, as an outstanding charge against the treasury — and you 
 will have the sum of $208,531 41 to be met by $154,065 80— 
 leaving a deficiency in the revenue of $54,465 61, a sum nearly 
 equal to what Mr. Hardin represents the whole expenses of 
 the year to have been. This deficit is marked in the auditor's 
 report, to which we have referred, " as a balance overpaid by 
 treasurer, on 10th October, 1829, in Commonwealth's paper, 
 of $54,463 61," and stands, of course, as a charge against the 
 revenue of the next year, though, in the auditor's statements, 
 these balances are never included in the annual expenditure, 
 but are charged as so much money overpaid the preceding 
 year. 
 
 Thus we perceive, at the start, that Mr. Hardin, with the 
 evidence all before him, misrepresents the actual amount of 
 the revenue of the State, by the difference between $61,357 05 
 and $154,065 80; and misrepresents the expenditure by the dif- 
 ference between the same sum of $61,357 05 and $177,573 16 — 
 
392 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL, 
 
 being a blunder only to the tune of $116,221 11. The expen- 
 ditures of that year only lacks about six thousand dollars of 
 being three times as great as he represented them. In 1830, 
 he represents the revenue and expenditure as being $66,309 38. 
 The auditor's report, from which he quoted, found in the Jour- 
 nal of the Convention, pages 111,, 112, shows a total revenue 
 of H46,050 86, and the same report shows a total expenditure 
 the same year of $175,961 47 — exhibiting a blunder upon the 
 part of Mr. Hardin, for this year, of $109,652 09r In 1831, 
 he states the revenue and the expenditure to be $62,351 44. 
 The tables whence he drew the amount of the tax collecta- 
 ble by the sheriffs that year, show him first-^that the total 
 revenue from all sources amounted to $215,415 50, and the 
 total expenditure to $243,541 47 — exhibiting the enormous 
 mistake of $181,190 03, in his estimate of the expenses of the 
 year — the actual amount being very nearly three times what 
 he represents it. In 1832, he states the revenue and expen- 
 diture to have been $70,598 82. The Journal of the Conven- 
 tion shoWjS, in the same tables so often cited, a total revenue for 
 this year of $175,199 22— and an expenditure of $236,059 27; 
 showing another mistake of $165,460 45. In 1833 — the last 
 year of the service of this renowned master and most veracious 
 historian of statistical finance — he represents the revenue and 
 expenditure to have been $64,758 58. His own tables show 
 the total revenue of that year to have been $341,976 10. The 
 total expenditure of the government was $169,410 51 — being 
 again mistaken to the amount of $104,651 93. In the history 
 of the revenue and expenditure of the State during five years — 
 for the most part of which he tells us, he was himself a member 
 of the legislature — he has erred to the amount of $697,175 61. 
 He adds, as we have already quoted, that till 1834, the revenue 
 tax collected never exceeded $74,000 00. "From 1791 down, 
 year after year, they would find that the expenses of the govern- 
 ment were steady, and provided for by that amount of revenue." 
 Whoever will examine the report of the second auditor, made 
 to the legislature in 1839-40, of the receipts and expenditures 
 of the government from 1823, beginning at page 29, Journal 
 
BEN. HARDIN — SINKING FUND, ETC. 393 
 
 House of Eepresentatives, will find the expenditure for the 
 years 1824, 1825, 1826, to be |305,662 38— 1392,092 33— and 
 1239,100 90, respectively. 
 
 We have gone through this long detail to show you Mr. 
 Hardin's great and astonishing unfairness. We have, in one 
 instance, given all the elements of the revenue, the lands west 
 of Tennessee — the vacant lands — the banks — and shown you 
 bow far they exceeded the ordinary revenue from taxation. 
 You must be satisfied that 6J cents on the hundred dollars 
 could never have defrayed the expenses of the government. 
 These resources were gradually exhausted. But the strangest 
 part of Mr. Hardin's statement is that when he shows a steady 
 and vast increase in your revenue he should attribute it purely 
 to increased taxation. In 1829, he says your revenue from 
 tax was only $61,396 05 — in the present year it is estimated 
 at $562,000. All this vast increase is owing to increased, 
 burdensome, unnecessary, ruinous taxation. In 1829, your 
 taxes were 6|- cents, in 1850, they are 19. But Mr. Hardin's 
 19 cents is only three times the amount of 6^ — the revenue 
 from all taxes now exceeds what it did then 9J times — how 
 does this happen? In some of those years. — those glorious, 
 free, happy years — take the year- 1831 for instance, when the 
 revenue from taxation at 6J was $62,351 44, and the total 
 expenditure $243,541 47 — 19 cents on the hundred dollars 
 would not have begun to pay it. Make the calculation : if 6J 
 cents, on a given valuation of property, yield $62,351 44, what 
 will 19 cents on the same valuation yield ? You will find it 
 would only be about $187,054 32 — it would not begin to pay 
 the expenditure of the year. Now, it yields $562,000 you 
 say — 10 cents, a little over half of what the country pays, 
 supports the government, and achieves what 19 would not have 
 done in your boasted time, to which you would carry us back. 
 The other nine sustains the sinking fund — goes in support of 
 common schools — and supports our glorious convention. You 
 can not fail to observe, from the careful and detailed state- 
 ment we have given of the total revenue, and total expendi- 
 tures of the government, within the five years cited by Mr. 
 
394 T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 Hardin, dovyn to 1834, two facts^ — first, that but a small por- 
 tion of the means of the State was drawn from taxation — and, 
 second, that there was almost constantly a deficiency in the 
 revenue. Even in the year 1834 — the account stands thus: 
 
 Revenue from sheriffs, $74,119 93 
 
 Revenue from clerks, 20,242 68 
 
 Miscellaneous, 67,646 07 
 
 Total, $162,008 68 
 
 The total _ expenditure of that year was $230,340 82, ex- 
 hibiting an excess of expenditure over income of $78,332 14. 
 These deficiencies of each year are marked in the auditor's 
 tables of the next year as balances overpaid by the Treasurer 
 on the 10th October (which is the close of the fiscal year) of 
 the year before. The mode in which it is done is, that the 
 annual deficiency of one year is paid by anticipating the 
 revenue of the next — by which means a public debt was in 
 the gradual course of formation. 
 
 You will further perceive that Mr. Hardin's statement con- 
 tains two gross delusions, the extent of which is ascertained 
 by the foregoing statement^lst. That the revenue from taxes 
 was within a trifle of embracing the whole revenue of the 
 State — and 2d, That the whole expenses of the government 
 were met or limited by that revenue. These are the two pro- 
 positions with which he set out, both of which are utterly false. 
 
 But, says Mr. Hardin, with a sneer, an economical set of 
 men then came into power— and then proceeds to show the 
 steady increase of the revenue, down to the present period, 
 which he ascribes solely to the insidious and stealthy march 
 of taxation. He compares, with his usual accuracy, resulting 
 from his profound knowledge and careful study and compari- 
 son of the causes which have led to the great social and po- 
 litical revolutions recorded in history, the present financial 
 embarrassments, and onerous taxation of Kentucky, with the 
 similar state of things which curbed the English and overthrew 
 the French monarchy. 
 
BEN. HARDIN — SINKING FUND, ETC. 395 
 
 He talks of the stealthy march of taxation, as though the 
 acts and counsels of a representative republic were vailed from 
 the public eye, hidden in the mystery which shrouds the move- 
 ments and the motives of the cabinets of princes. 
 
 The archives of your State are no secret. The acts of your 
 government are open to your inspection at all times. The 
 history of your revenue — your expenditure — your taxation. — 
 your finance — is spread out full and fair upon your records — 
 is subjected annually to the rigorous inspection of your repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 Most men measure the freedom and prosperity of commu- 
 nities, by the staadards from which Ben. Hardin deduces their 
 decline and ruin. A steadily increasing public revenue has 
 been regarded by some persons, claiming to be philosophers 
 and economists, as entirely consistent with public prosperity — 
 as marking, nay, as proving incontestably, the growth of in- 
 dustry, the enlargement of capital, the increased and increas- 
 ing value of the property of the people. They will do this 
 without the aid of statistics. We will endeavor to prove, 
 before we close this article, that the theory squares with the 
 facts. 
 
 We have exhibited to you the state of things down to 1834. 
 The resources of the State, independent of taxation, were de- 
 clining, and must soon have ceased entirely. Her lands and 
 the funds derived from her banks were not permanent and 
 perennial sources of supply. The tax of 6J cents, the six- 
 teenth part of one per cent., one-sixteenth of a cent upon the 
 dollar, was known to be insufiicient to support a government 
 at all competent to any political object. 
 
 No man perceived this more clearly than Mr. Ben. Hardin. 
 We have shown you, in the close of our eighth number, and 
 pointed you to the proof, that feeling the insufficiency of the 
 then amount of the revenue, he led upon the subject, and met 
 directly and manfully the question. He looked to the true 
 source of revenue — an equal ad valorem tax upon the property 
 of the people. A bill came from the House of Representa- 
 tives, taxing stores and merchandize; Mr. Hardin offered the 
 
396 T. F. MAESHAIili. 
 
 amendment, to raise the general ad valorem tax to ten cents, 
 and carried it through the Senate. The House rejected the 
 amendment, and it fell, the Senate receding. This was the 
 session of 1832-33 — the last of Ben. Hardin's legislative ser- 
 vice, till he came to overthrow the State in the convention. 
 The next year — 1833-34 — the legislature yielded to the neces- 
 sity which Hardin foresaw, and did what he attempted to do 
 before. This tax remained stationary till 1841, when five 
 cents were added in aid of the sinking fund — a matter which 
 we will explain when we come to that branch of the subject. 
 In 1848, the people ratified at the polls the tax of two cents 
 in aid of the school fund. In the session of 1848-49, the 
 legislature directed two cents additional to meet alleged defal- 
 cations in the treasury, and to defray the expenses of the 
 convention. The convention seem inclined to use up their 
 share of it, and to make it perpetual, by continuing their 
 existence and their power. Should they ever adjourn — the 
 tax itself, from its nature, will cease — it was not designed to 
 be permanent. The tax of 17 cents is permanent, and is 
 composed of the three elements into which we have distributed 
 it — imposed at the times, and in the manner, and for the pur- 
 poses we have enumerated — purposes to which it has been 
 heretofore faithfully applied by the present government, as 
 the public accounts fully demonstrate. 
 
 The statement of the revenue for 1849 — ^its amount and its 
 application — is as follows : 
 
 Gross revenue, 1849, - - . . |561,382 43 
 
 Commissions, delinquents, etc., - - - 43,507 13 
 
 1517,875 30 
 Sinking fund, - - - $187,676 60 
 School fund, - - - 54,407 92 
 
 Convention, - - - 54,407 92 
 
 246,492 44 
 
 Leaving for expenses, .... $271,382 86 
 
BEN". HAEDIN — SINKING FUND, ETC. 397 
 
 [For proof, see second auditor's report, 1848-49, page 23, 
 statement No. 9.] 
 
 It will be seen from this statement, that a tax of five cents, 
 ad valorem, yields $63,666 60 more in 1849, than 6J cents 
 did in Mr. Hardin's boasted year 1834. 
 
 It will be further observed, that, deducting every, thing else, 
 expenses of collection, delinquencies, sinking fund, school 
 fund, convention, the regular revenue tax of 10 cents, which 
 covers the whole expenses of the government — appropriations 
 and all— -amounts to $271,382 86, and yields to the State 
 $197,382 86 more than the tax of 6i cents yielded in 1834. 
 This is the increase of revenue in fifteen years, by the addi- 
 tion of 3f cents upon the hundred dollars of property. A 
 little more than one-thirtieth part of a cent to the dollar — a 
 back-breaking business, to be sure, to the tax-payer — but to 
 the State, this mite, for which we have no coin or denomina- 
 tion to express it, has turned out a mine of support and credit. 
 The tax of five cents for the sinking fund was laid in 1841, 
 though it does not appear in the auditor's report till October, 
 1842. The tax stood at ten cents from 1835, when it was 
 first collected, to 1841, making seven years. We will help 
 Mr. Hardin to the true reason of the increase of the revenue 
 during these years. It can not be explained by increased 
 taxation — for the taxes remained the same ; we must look 
 elsewhere for it, and we think we shall be able to find the 
 explanation without difficulty. In 1835, the year after the 
 ten cents were imposed, the revenue was $124,518 80. In 
 1841, before the five cents appear in the accounts, $261,808 00 
 -^exhibiting an increase of revenue upon the same basis ofi 
 taxation, within seven years, of $137,290 18 — an increase of 
 nearly double of what the whole revenue receivable from 
 sherifi's in 1834 amounted to. This looks like ruination. 
 
 But how did it happen? Examine legislative report, No. 
 10, communicated at the December session, 1849, page 276, 
 and you will find the valuation of taxable property for the 
 year 1835 — the first year the ten cents were levied — to amount 
 to $149,273,972. Cast your eye down to 1841, and you will 
 
398 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 find the valuation to be |263,845,749, showing an increase in 
 value in seven years, of one hundred and fourteen millions, 
 five' hundred and seventy-one thousand, seven hundred and 
 seventy-seven dollars. This is horrible — the more the revenue 
 thrives, the richer grow the people ; the more the State robs, 
 the more is the capital of the people enlarged. 
 
 The expenses of the government, exclusive of the public 
 debt, the school fund, and the convention — including every 
 thing else — in 1849 is shown to be $271,582 86 cents. 
 
 The expenditure in 1834, for the same objects — there being 
 then no sinking fund, no school fund, and no convention, (in 
 that they were, we acknowle'dge, in advance of us ; here, and 
 here alone, have we retrograded,) was, as we have already 
 shown, |230,340 82 — showing an increase in expenses, not 
 from $74,000 00 to $562,000 00, but from $230,340 82 to 
 $271,382 86. An increase in the expenses of a government 
 for a people in the course of fifteen years of $41,000 — whose 
 capital has increased one hundred and fifty millions within the 
 time, and whose numbers have advanced proportionably — 
 would seem to be admirable ground for a thorough political 
 revolution. It was not on account of an increasing revenue 
 that France went into a revolution. Louis the Sixteenth 
 would never have called the Assembly of the States-General 
 in '89, but that his revenues had failed. All the politic ma- 
 chinery of despotism could squeeze no more out of the dried 
 husks of oppressed and exhausted indigence. The question 
 with Charles the First was certainly very like that now pend- 
 ing in Kentucky ! 
 
 What must we think of the historian who compares the 
 revenue system of the French monarchy — when two-thirds of 
 the lands of the kingdom were held by the nobility and 
 clergy, and they exempt by the fundamental law of the em- 
 pire from taxation — when trade was crushed by the most 
 oppressive regulations — when labor, in every department of 
 it, was held in contempt, and yet the whole burdens of the 
 State thrown upon the industrious classes — what must we 
 think, we ask again, of the historian who compares this sys- 
 
BEN. HAEDIN — SINKING FUND, ETC. 399 
 
 tem with ours? Or -what shall we say to the lawyer and 
 statesman, who sees, in the effort of the English nation, in the 
 seventeenth century, to wrest from the hand of an hereditary 
 monarch the power of arbitrary taxation, and to assert and 
 make fast and eternal the principle of frequent parliaments, 
 and the right of the people to tax themselves through their 
 own representatives, in any mode, and to any extent they 
 please — who fought to put down arbitrary laws and dependent 
 tribunals of justice — who saw, in the court of Star Chamber, 
 a court dependent upon the will of the prince, a sure instru- 
 ment of arbitrary power — who fought, and kept fighting, for 
 half a century, through all sorts of confusion and difficulties 
 and sufferings, till they succeeded in establishing these great 
 truths — that the king was a constitutional officer, and held his 
 power from the gift, and by contract with his people — that the 
 people, through their representatives, had entire control of the 
 purse of the nation — that the law was supreme, above all, 
 until altered by parliament — and that to give it strength and 
 efficiency, it must be interpreted and applied by judges, ap- 
 pointed by the king, paid by the parliament, and removable 
 by neither, but holding their offices during good behavior ? Is 
 it not marvellous to hear a revolutionist, who seeks to strike 
 down the representatives of the people, and to degrade their 
 character — who holds them up as unworthy of all trust or 
 confidence — takes from them all power over the public purse, 
 and strips them of the entire direction of public affairs — fixes 
 the revenue, the finances, the taxation for ever, in bar of all 
 future discretion of the representative body — splits the com- 
 monwealth up into separate little elective and reeligible judicial 
 dynasties — is it not wonderful to hear such an one compare 
 himself with, or seek to draw .his principles from, Sydney, or 
 Milton, or Hampden? 
 
 There is a marvellously striking likeness between Ben. Har- 
 din and John Hampden — fully as great as between John J. 
 Crittenden, our despot, and the 1st Charles— fully as great as 
 between our free commonwealth and the French despotism — 
 but we must pass to another branch of the subject. 
 26 
 
400 T. p. MAKSHALL. 
 
 P. S. Since writing the above, a circumstance has occurred 
 to us, which we had omitted to mention in its proper place — 
 we do so now, and our readers will bear in mind and apply 
 the correction. The subjects of taxation were enlarged in 
 1837 by what is commonly called the equalizing law, which 
 took effect in 1838, and is included in the valuation of 1841, 
 and was not in that of 1835, between which two years we have 
 instituted the comparison of the taxable property of the State. 
 It -follows that to make the comparison a fair one, we should 
 deduct from the sum of the valuation of 1841 the amount of 
 property given in under the equalizing law. We have no 
 means within our reach to ascertain with precision what it was 
 at that period. The auditor's report for 1848 is before us, and 
 furnishes the amount in 1848. It has, however, certainly in- 
 creased very much within the seven years — but as we seek no 
 advantage in the argument, we will deduct the amount of the 
 last year from 1841, and measure the valuation thus reduced 
 with that of 1835. The auditor's report shows an increase of 
 the capital valued under the equalizing law, between the years 
 1848 and 1849, to be about a million and a half — if this in- 
 crease has been steady since 1841, it would make a difference 
 of five or six millions of dollars ; as we do not know, however, 
 with precision what it has been^ we will assume the amount 
 given in 1848. The auditor states it to be $32,361,752. De- 
 duct this from the total valuation of 1841, which we have 
 shown to be $263,845,749, and it will leave $231,584,097. 
 The increase, then, in the six years from 1835 to 1841, in the 
 valuation of the same subjects of taxation, will be $82,210,025, 
 instead of $114,571,777, as we stated in the body of this 
 article — this makes the comparison perfectly just. 
 
 We have fixed upon the year 1835 as being the date when 
 the increased revenue under the ten cent tax is first exhibited 
 in the auditor's report, and the year 1841 as the close — the 
 five cents additional not appearing till 1842. The law raising 
 the tax to ten cents was passed in February, 1834, and the 
 law imposing the additional five cents, in February, 1841. 
 This may produce the impression in persons not familiar with 
 
BEN. HAEDIIf — SINKING FUND, ETC. 401 
 
 the mode of settling the accounts of the revenue, that the 
 revenue of the year 1841, which I have given, ought to in- 
 clude the receipts of the additional five cents, inasmuch as the 
 law authorizing its collection parsed that year. Such is not 
 the fact, however, as will he readily perceived by a reference 
 to the auditor's tables. The explanation is this. The calendar 
 year terminates with December — the fiscal year the 10th Oc- 
 tober. The taxes collected in 1834 are paid in January, 1835, 
 or must be paid in by that time, and appear in the auditor's 
 account at the close of the fiscal year 1835, which is October. 
 The taxes collected in 1840 are paid in in January, 1841, or 
 must be paid in by that time, and do not appear till October,, 
 the close of the fiscal year 1841. Thus the revenue from ten 
 cents, authorised and collected by law in 1834, were not paid 
 in till the next January, and, of course, do not appear on the 
 auditor's books till October, 1835 — and the revenue from the 
 additional five cents, though collected in 1841, is not paid 
 over till January, 1842, and does not appear till October, 1842. 
 Hence, the statement which I have made of the year 1835, 
 first exhibits the increase under the ten cents collected the 
 year before ; and my statement of the revenue in October, 
 
 1841, as exhibiting the last year of the ten cent tax, and not 
 including the five cent tax, is also correct — because the five 
 cents, though collected in 1841, is not paid over till January, 
 
 1842, and does not appear till the close of the fiscal year, 
 1842, which is October. Any one who will examine the audi- 
 tor's table will see the fact of which this is the explanation. 
 
402 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 THE OLD GUARD. -INTEENAL IMPEOVEMENT. 
 3sro. -vii. 
 
 During his connection ■wifh the Old Guard, Mr. Marshall discussed this 
 subject in the following article. It is handled with the same superior 
 skill and judgment that characterize his other productions. No one can 
 read the article and think of the remarks upon the practical workings of 
 things it contains, and compare them with subsequent results, without 
 being struck with the penetration — almost prophetic — ^it displays. The 
 reader will also admit the masterly manner in which the portraiture of 
 Mr. GrUTHEiE is drawn. 
 
 YoTT ■will have remarked that Mr. Ben. Hardin, to yrhom we 
 are replying, fixes the year 1834, when the taxes were at 6i 
 cents on the hundred dollars, and when he says the total rev- 
 enue (whieh we have shown to be false) was $74,000 — and 
 the expenditure of the government (which we have also shown 
 to be false) was limited by that revenue — and the value of 
 property assessed for taxation (which we have shown to be 
 true) amounted only to $136,703,999 — as the close of the 
 halcyon days of Kentucky, the culminating point whence 
 her decline commenced. The additional tax of 3f cents on 
 each hundred dollars, which marked her entrance, according 
 to him, on the career of ruin, first took efiect in 1835. It 
 was in 1838 that Mr. Hardin closed his career of legislation. 
 The economical set of men came in afterward — the internal 
 improvement system was begun and prosecuted — the public 
 debt was contracted— the taxes were raised again, and the 
 result is a tax of 19 cents on the hundred dollars — a debt, as 
 he somewhere says in his speech, (which is false,) of seven 
 millions, and a revolution in government, with a total over- 
 throw of the constitution of Kentucky, as he hopes. Before 
 we consider the public debt and the sinking fund, we beg 
 leave under a separate head to treat concisely this subject of 
 internal improvement. It was in 1835-6 that the system of 
 internal improvement may fairly be considered as entered upon 
 
INTEENAL IMPEOVEMENT^J. GUTHRIE. 403 
 
 and shaped. The act providing a sinking fund for the pay- 
 ment of loans for internal improvement, bears date February 
 29th, 1836. This celebrated act was the real initiation of the 
 system, the evidence of the purpose of the State to prosecute 
 it as a fixed policy. 
 
 We have shown in our eighth number, that in the session 
 of 1832-3, Mr. Ben. Ha,rdin did what he could for internal im- 
 provement. He did a good deal — and attempted a good deal 
 more. We published his report in favor of advancing the 
 State credit to the Lexington and Ohio railroad company, as 
 guaranty in a loan of $300,000. In that report, the extreme 
 ground is taken in favor of the system — ^the ground that the 
 State holds a sort of parental relation to private corporations, 
 and is bound by every consideration of policy, duty, and hu- 
 manity, to guarantee and cover their undertakings, in this way, 
 with her credit. We have shown that he reported, and carried 
 bills for subscribing stock to two other companies, to the 
 amount of $50,000 to each — and that he reported an amend- 
 ment, and carried it through the Senate, for raising the taxes 
 to 10 cents. We wish you to bear these things in mind when 
 you read this man's tirades. But we quit him for the present. 
 
 The year 1832, and the session of 1832-3 were epochs in 
 the domestic history of the United States — and marked a 
 change in the internal policy of the State of Kentucky, which 
 demands at our hands a brief comment. The election of Gen- 
 eral Jackson in 1832, settled the questions of the bank of the 
 United States, and of any internal improvement upon the part 
 of the general government. His vast popularity — and his com- 
 plete and overwhelming triumph, rendered it more than prob- 
 able that he would transmit the succession to some man of his 
 own party and his own principles. The national debt was 
 about to be paid ofiF, which it was known must leave a vast 
 surplus in the treasury of the United States. The United 
 States Bank it was known must soon begin to wind up its 
 affairs, and to withdraw its capital. The commercial opera- 
 tions of Kentucky had been mainly conducted through the 
 credit of the branches of that institution, located at Lexington 
 
404 T, r. MARSHALL. 
 
 and Louisville — a credit out of all proportion to the capital 
 employed, which was only two millions. The sudden with- 
 drawal of that capital and tha,t credit, it was easily foreseen, 
 would press upon Kentucky with a force and acuteness, the 
 extent of which could not well be estimated. The legislature 
 of Kentucky at once perceived the necessity of providing a 
 substitute — of adopting some means of alluring capital to the 
 State, to occupy the place of that about to be withdrawn. 
 They commenced chartering banks at the session of 1832. 
 
 The attention of the State became keenly awakened to the 
 subject of internal improvement by the State itself. All hope 
 from the general government was gone for years — if not for 
 ever. An appropriation had been made by Congress to the 
 first great work attempted here, the Maysville and Lexington 
 turnpike — -the president had vetoed it. Mr. Clay's land bill, 
 by which he hoped, upon a principle peculiar to itself, to divert 
 that much of the national revenue, which the nation did not 
 want, and could not use, into the coffers of the States, to 
 enable them to provide the means of easy commercial inter- 
 course and transit between them, passed Congress. The presi- 
 dent put that in his pocket. 
 
 The time was fast approaching when it would be absolutely 
 necessary to decide what was to be done with the surplus 
 revenue of the nation. Between 1832 and 1835 Kentucky 
 incorporated ten millions of banking capital, in a mode and 
 updin 'principles which will be explained when we come to 
 treat of the public debt and the sinking fund. The popular 
 enthusiasm in favor of the system in Kentucky continued to 
 increase, and never did the popular enthusiasm run so high 
 within our knowledge on any subject. Building roads, and 
 opening the navigation of rivers — improving the old — and 
 finding new avenues for commerce, seemed to occupy the 
 public mind to the exclusion of every thing else. President- 
 making itself appeared, for a brief season, to be forgotten. 
 The people were far in advance of their representatives upon 
 this subject, we know. One of the editors of this paper was 
 a member of the House of Representatives, during the sessions 
 
INTERNAL IMPEOVEMENT — J. GUTHEIE. 405 
 
 of 1832-3, 1835-6, 1836-7, 1838-9, 1839-40. He participat- 
 ed largely in the guilt, if guilt it was, of what was done. He 
 refused absolutely, however, to follow some, who are now de- 
 nouncing the system, and seeking to overthrow the legislative 
 branch of the government, for the length to which they went, 
 under the spur of the people. That spur was put to him, and 
 put to him in vain. He resisted obstinately, as they know, 
 the urgent enthusiasm of his own constituency — who would 
 have impelled him to embark his State in enterprises utterly 
 beyond her means — and contrary as he believed to her inter- 
 ests. Does any body remember the project, and the leading 
 projectors of the Charleston, Lexington and Cincinnati rail- 
 road and quasi United States Bank — the great four States 
 monied institutions to be connected with it. Does any body 
 remember Col. Memminger, and the winter 1838-9. If any 
 one does, he will understand what we mean. Does any one 
 remember the course pursued by the Wicklifife family in re- 
 lation to that matter? If he does, let him compare their 
 effort now to strike down the government for abusing State 
 credit for contracting a public debt for internal improvement 
 of their own territory — with the efforts of the same men then, 
 to involve her in a wild scheme of connecting Lexington with 
 Charleston, by a railroad six hundred miles in length, across 
 mountains and rivers, at a cost probably of thirty millions — 
 let him make the comparison; it will throw new light upon 
 human nature — it will be good for his soul. Oh ! these cous- 
 ins — my conscience ! Hear Chas. A. Wickliffe, in 1838, on the 
 convention project, and an independent judiciary. Robert 
 Wickliffe, sr. and jr., on the Charleston road and bank from 
 1835-6 to 1838-9 — and cousin Ben. Hardin on internal 
 improvement, advancing State credit to private companies, 
 raising the taxes, etc., in 1832, and now listen to all four, 
 raving in unison about public debt, and internal improvement, 
 denouncing the whole affair throughout — annihilating the leg- 
 islative power, and parceling out the commonwealth into 
 little elective judicial bailiwicks, without an executive head, 
 without a common council, armed with a full legislative power 
 
406 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 to represent the, sovereign people, guide their policy, superin- 
 tend their public affairs, and inspect the conduct of their sub- 
 ordinate agents. These men, banded together in a firm family 
 pact, and the leaders, as they boast, of the revolution. Com- 
 pare their present declarations and objects with their past, 
 and who can trust or follow them? Amid the shameful rene- 
 gadism of the times, there stands one man firm to the tenor 
 and darling objects of his whole life, obstinate «ven in the 
 midst of his concessions — consistent, even in his very inconsis- 
 tencies. We mean Mr. James Guthrie, of the city of Louis- 
 ville — the president of this convention. We shall speak more 
 particularly of this gentleman, in our next number, when we 
 come to examine the public debt and the sinking fund, of 
 which last he was the author — we know what we say. We 
 are not so indiscriminate, or so unjust, as to class him with 
 such men as Ben. Hardin. He is a man of another stamp — 
 more dangerons, because he is endowed with really more intel- 
 lectual power — because he is the acknowledged head of a 
 powerful party: — and because, though unscrupulous in his 
 alnhition, and careless of the political means he employs. 
 As a private gentleman, he commands the respect of society, 
 and is a man of truth, honor and courage. Of an exterior, 
 cold, proud, haughty, often supercilious and repulsive — still he 
 is endowed with a spirit of craft', and a genius for intrigue, 
 subtle, cautious, and. profound as Machiavel himself. 
 
 Mr. Guthrie's original education, that is the education ob- 
 tained at schools, is limited. He is what is termed a self- 
 made man. He owes very little to early instruction, and his 
 matured manhood has been too busy to allow of his reading 
 books. Of what may be properly called science, out of his 
 immediate profession, he has none, and with elegant letters, 
 he is not even tinctured. But that sort of knowledge, which 
 is won, from a cool and close and continued observation of the 
 men and things, with which we are surrounded, is his. With 
 a naturally strong mind, and a singularly clear and accurate 
 judgment — he has made himself what he designed to be, a 
 thorough man of business. He is a man of vast ambition, 
 
INTEENAL IMPROVEMENT — J. GUTHRIE. 407 
 
 and vast tenacity of purpose, and obstinacy of will. If he 
 had been endowed with those fascinating qualities of conver- 
 sation, wit, eloquence, and above all, of manner, which render 
 men pleasing to the crowd, and lay the foundation of what is 
 called popularity — his history, and his character might have 
 been different. He would undoubtedly have been a more 
 splendid — we doubt whether he would have been a stronger 
 man than he is. He felt his deficiencies, and has courted 
 power, instead of popularity. . He was a relief man, a new 
 court man, a Jackson man, etc. He has adhered steadily to 
 that party in all their political struggles — and yet his history 
 as a legislator for Kentucky is in singular contrast with the 
 principles of the party of which he is now the unquestionable 
 head. Mr. Guthrie has seemed to us — and we have observed 
 him somewhat, to have had three grand objects in life. First, 
 to build for himself an enormous fortune. Avarice with him 
 is a form, a very elevated form of ambition. He regards for- 
 tune as one of the instruments of power — and he employs it 
 as such freely- — lavishly on some occasions. There is nothing 
 mean or miserly, about James Guthrie. He has done many 
 kind and generous things — even where he had no political end 
 in view. His second, was to make Louisville the first city in 
 the west, and his third, to rule the city, which he considers in 
 some sort a creation of his own — and through a power, and 
 influence, central and commanding, to place his party in pos- 
 session of the government of Kentucky, himself at the head 
 of it. 
 
 He has attained one of these objects certainly. It is said 
 that when he came to Louisville he was not worth $100. His 
 estate is now estimated at a million of dollars. If he has not 
 made Louisville the first city in the west, he has, at least, 
 placed her in the front rank, and such as she is, he has long 
 ruled her. For years he was Louisville — the corporate Louis- 
 ville. He guided her whole municipal concerns, and' ruled 
 her with a rod of iron. With a dead party majority of 600 
 against him — he could be elected when ever he pleased. It 
 was at one time thought he had lost his influence — popularity 
 he never had. The call of the convention was a democratic 
 
408 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 call — the cry of abolition was a democratic cry, to crush the 
 whigs with. Louisville was a whig city — Louisville was sup- 
 posed to be an emancipation city. Every body who knew 
 any thing, knew that the democrats, as a party, expected to 
 rise into power in the State, after an exile of twenty -five 
 years, over the ruins of the old constitution. Mr. Guthrie 
 himself had been the uniform friend of the law of 1833 in re- 
 lation to the importation of slaves — that law became in these 
 days the badge of abolitionism. None so loud as he in de- 
 nouncing emancipation. Under these circumstances, he con- 
 trived to be returned from a whig city, found his party in a 
 majority in the convention, became its president, has oflFered 
 to the whig State of Kentucky a constitution which prostrates 
 for ever every principle in politics, for which they ever conten- 
 ded, and if it be accepted — his old party to which he has ad- 
 hered so long, and through such evil fortune in Kentucky, 
 will again be brought into power, he at its head — under a 
 constitution of their own making — and radical thoroughly. 
 Thus he seems likely to obtain the third great object of his 
 life. 
 
 Throughout this whole career, at least since 1832, he has 
 stood in his legislation in decided and glaring opposition to 
 the general principles of his party. He has yielded at last, 
 and agreed to carry into the constitution, a prohibition of 
 those very powers, which he, as a legislator, has carried farther 
 and wielded more effectually than any other man. 
 
 However others, when the system was popular, may have 
 struggled for the honor of being its authors — he was the real 
 efficient author of it. He projected the scheme of finance, 
 and of the sinking fund, by which alone it could have been 
 carried on — and with characteristic pride, even when with his 
 locofoco spade — he was extirpating from the constitution the 
 last fiber of the last root of the system, he was too proud, 
 too true, to deny his agency — or to condemn the grandest 
 work of his life. He avowed his approbation of the thing he 
 was forced to destroy, and vindicated the wisdom of what he 
 had projected. 
 
JOURNAL LETTEE. 409 
 
 LETTER TO THE LOUISVILLE JOURNAL OF NOVEMBER THE 
 
 2.7, 1851. 
 
 In 1851, the claims of both Mr. Crittenden and Mr. Dixon to a seat in 
 the Senate of the United States from Kentucky, were being urged with 
 zeal and warmth by their respective friends. The rivalry of two such 
 champions created indeed quite a breach in the Whig party of the State. 
 Mr. Marshall, being a warm personal and political friend of Mr. Ckitten- 
 DEN, urged his claims to the position with accustomed energy and ability. 
 Misrepresentation grew out of his course, and he was more than once 
 charged with being mainly instrumental in bringing about the unpleasant 
 disruption. In defense of himself, and to give more fully his views in 
 regard to the senatorial contest, he wrote the following letter to the Louis- 
 ville Journal in November, 1851. Aside from its value as an epitome of 
 then current political history, it is one of the happiest literary successes to 
 be found any where. Bold in its originality, in conception grand — of 
 elastic brilliancy, searching depth and classic finish, it will vie with sim- 
 ilar productions of the ablest masters. 
 
 Gentlemen: I met to-day with your paper of yester- 
 day, containing two letters from Frankfort — the one signed 
 " Alpha," the other simply with the letter " M." These let- 
 ters undertake to review the state of the parties to the con- 
 test now going on for a seat in the Senate of the United 
 States. My name figures in both communications, and I am 
 charged distinctly as the author of the breach in the Whig 
 party, or at least as the irritating cause which has rendered 
 that breach incurable. Mr. Crittenden's friends, in the judg- 
 ment of your CDrrespondent, committed " an egregious blunder 
 in intrusting his interests to the hands of Mr. Marshall." The 
 divisions of the Whig party, and all the mischievous conse- 
 quences resulting thereform, are ascribed to the factious and 
 iitiprudent and bitter character of my remarks made upon the 
 floor of the legislature. Until then, it is alleged that the 
 friends of Dixon and Crittenden had been acting in good 
 humor and friendship, but the inappropriate and uncalled for 
 
410 T. F. MABSHALL, 
 
 sarcasms, the severe and mortal thrusts aimed by me at Mr. 
 Dixon, have exasperated the friends of that gentleman till all 
 reconciliation is hopeless. The mischief I have done is not 
 confined to exciting Mr. Dixon's friends against Mr. Critten- 
 den, but it seems I have brought down upon him the ven- 
 geance of Mr. Clay and his friends, by insinuating that he 
 was indebted to Mr. Crittenden for his escape from the wreck 
 of Mr. Adams' administration. Your correspondent thinks 
 that " Old Hal " (as he somewhat familiarly styles that great 
 man) may possibly admit his -obligations to Providence ; but, 
 save that, it is insult to ascribe his greatness, elevation, and 
 power to the support of generous and devoted friends, or to 
 any thing short of his own great and unaided genius. As if 
 it were not enough to pluck down the wrath of Mr. Clay and 
 Dixon upon John Crittenden's unoffending head, your corres- 
 pondent makes me run a muck upon the Democracy, so as to 
 leave my friend no support under heaven. My dear sirs, I 
 have, for the last ten years, been so accustomed to misrepre- 
 sentation of myself, my actions, opinions, words, and motives, 
 that however I may have writhed at first, I have at length, so 
 far as myself am concerned, given over resistance and ceased 
 to struggle with falsehood. Were the effect of your corres- 
 pondent's statements limited to myself — were their aim and 
 consequence simply to hold me up as laboring to distract and 
 ruin a party -with which I pretend to be acting in good faith, 
 I might and certainly would have borne it in silence, however 
 false, unjust, and injurious. 
 
 That I should strive to scatter the seeds of a feud between 
 Mr. Clay and Mr. Crittenden, to exasperate the former gentle- 
 man and his friends, and thereby procure the present defeat 
 and future ruin of the latter, would be certainly the surest 
 road to the dissolution of the Whig party in Kentucky. If I 
 had any wrongs to complain of at the hands of that party, 
 here were a revenge deep, sure, ample, and for the malignant 
 treachery involved in the time and mode of its execution, 
 entirely worthy of a fiend. Were the effect of these charges 
 limited to myself, I have said that I should maintain unbroken 
 
JOURNAL LETTER. 411 
 
 silence. But the accusation has a wider scope, and is intended 
 to reach other heads than mine. Your correspondent says that 
 Mr. C.'s cause and interests had been entrusted to my hands 
 by his friends. Whatever course I may have pursued in de- 
 bate, whatever I may have said, is therefore chargeable upon 
 him. It is to make him responsible for all evil consequences 
 that my conduct has been arraigned — it is to reach him, and 
 to hold him responsible for the calamitous divisions of his 
 party, that these severe censures are piled upon me. That 
 Mr. Clay and his friends will so consider it, is distinctly 
 alleged by "Alpha." "This speech," says your correspond- 
 ent, alluding to mine, " although an exceedingly fine one, 
 will have the effect of widening the breach. The thrust made 
 at Dixon was very severe, and he and his friends can not help 
 feeling sore under it. And I am sure that Mr. Clay and his 
 friends will never consent for it to he understood that Mr. 
 Crittenden dragged him out from under the ruins of Adams' 
 administration. 'Old Hal' may be willing to admit he is under 
 some obligations to Providence for his success in this world; 
 but that indomitable spirit which has borne him up under all the 
 political reverses, which in a lony and eventful life have be- 
 fallen him, will never permit him to ascribe his elevation to any 
 thing short of his own bright, glowing, and powerful genius." 
 It is to this latter view of the bearing of my course that I 
 wish to draw your attention particularly. It is from the im- 
 plication of my motives here made, and from the disastrous 
 consequences here clearly predicted,' that I mean to vindicate 
 myselfj and if truth can ever prevail, to rescue John Critten- 
 den. This charge upon me — this false, mischievous, unfounded 
 charge, that I had represented Mr. Crittenden as the founder 
 of Mr. Clay's fortunes, came first from one of the leaders of 
 the Democratic party on the floor of the House. Dr. Green, 
 of Henry, rose when I had finished, and with skillful misrep- 
 resentation, adapted admirably to the views and tactics of his 
 party, alleged that he had never understood, till he had heard 
 it that day from the gentleman from Woodford, that Mr. Clay 
 owed his elevation and his fame to John J. Crittenden. He 
 
4:12 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 had always understood that the sage of Ashland was the 
 architect of his own fortunes, and indebted for his grandeur 
 and his influence solely to his own great genius and indomit- 
 able energy. 
 
 Coming from this quarter, this was all quite natural, and 
 the motive too obvious, as I supposed, to be dangerous, and 
 the misrepresentation of my words and meaning too glaring 
 to require then and in that presence explanation or denial at 
 my hands. That a Democratic leader should, with humane 
 and benevolent iingers, fall to scratching with all his might 
 what every body kno^s has long been considered a sore place 
 on ,the Whig body — a spot right over the heart, which the 
 common enemies of Clay and Crittenden have long hoped to 
 see terminate in cancer — was natural and politic. 
 
 It is true, my dear sirs, that until I spoke, explaining the 
 reasons why I desired Col. Williams to withdraw Mr. Critten- 
 den's name from the ballot, nothing had been said on the floor 
 of the House in open debate upon the exasperating topics 
 connected with this senatorial election. That "the two divis- 
 ions had been acting in good humor and friendship until the 
 factious speech made by Mr. Marshall," as alleged by your 
 correspondent M., is utterly false. If your correspondent 
 knows any thing about the matter, or knowing, cares to tell 
 the truth, he will admit that every rumor to Mr. Crittenden's 
 prejudice, every charge against him, and more, which I noticed 
 and attempted to answer, ' had been made, circulated, pressed 
 against him out of the House, and that, after I spoke, they 
 were openly urged in the House, by Mr. Mitchell and Mr. 
 McKee, and the charge of Abolitionism and the pardon of 
 Fairbanks thrown in, by way of supplement, by Mr. Bates, 
 of Barren, one of the aspirants to the Democratic leadership. 
 
 In withdrawing Mr. Crittenden, or requesting his withdrawal, 
 I was compelled to explain, or be exposed to misconstruction 
 myself, and risk irreparable injury to him. 
 
 The facts existing at the time are briefly these: That 
 portion of the Whig party who desire to restore Mr. Crit- 
 tenden to the Senate, whence he was withdrawn in 1848, to 
 
JOFENAL LETTER. 413 
 
 make the gubernatorial race against Mr. Powell, sorely, as it 
 now appears, against his own political interests, did not desire 
 to involve him in a contest on the floor with any member of 
 his own party. They were willing to discuss his claims 
 upon national. State, personal, or party grounds, before 
 the Whig party alone, in a free and equal party council. 
 They did not know, by any count they were able to make, 
 what would be the result. They pledged themselves over 
 and again to abide that result, whatever it might be, and to 
 go in solid and unbroken phalanx for the nominee by a 
 majority in a council of seventy of the party, the whole 
 seventy binding themselves to such submission. On joint- 
 ballot, seventy votes are necessary to an election. They 
 were willing to this, and proflFered it before any ballot was 
 had. Every candid man will acknowledge this, who knows 
 any thing of the party movements in Frankfort from the 
 beginning of the session. Among those willing to submit 
 the decision to a party majority, were several of Mr. Dixon's 
 friends. Forty-six "Whigs had tendered such a meeting, and 
 submission to such a decision, before any thing had been 
 said by me on the floor. If "Alpha" or "M." know any 
 thing of what was said or had occurred out of the House, 
 they know it was insisted that Mr. Crittenden should be run 
 before the Democratic party, and his strength tested with 
 the Whig party in a race, where several dissentient Whigs, 
 if the Democratic party could be induced to unite with the 
 minority, even thus feeble, would be able to elect any body 
 over Mr. Crittenden, though he should be supported by sixty- 
 eight Whigs. It is known that it was said in open council, 
 that Mr. Dixon's friends would be willing to come into such 
 a council, provided no name should be placed before it other 
 than such as had been on the ballot in the House. That 
 they feared to trust the gallant leader of the chase, who had, 
 in the heat of the sun, borne the brunt, and strained every 
 nerve and sinew in the contest, reeling with fatigue, and 
 reeking with perspiration in every limb, to a new contest 
 with an old hound, who had lain quietly in the shade, without 
 
414 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 even straining himself the least, that he might come in at the 
 eleventh hour, and snatch the game which had been run 
 down by others. In the face of taunts like these — I quote 
 them substantially throughout, and in many instances liter- 
 ally — Mr. Crittenden was put in nomination. In the judg- 
 ment of his best friends, it became my duty to urge his 
 withdrawal. I could not do so without explanation. So 
 much for the circumstance under which I acted; now for 
 the mode in which I discharged my duty to the party, the 
 entire Whig party, with which I am pledged to act. In 
 allusion to Mr. Crittenden's course in 1830, '31 and '32, in 
 the senatorial election, my motives, sentiments, and words, 
 about which there could have been no misunderstanding or 
 misapprehension in the minds of candid men, of whatever 
 party, were substantially, and as near as I can report, liter- 
 ally as follows: If there could have been any doubt, or if it 
 had been possible for any Whig to have been misled as to 
 me, by the ingenious glosses of Dr. Green, on Friday, I am 
 sure I dispelled every, even the faintest resemblance to 
 a vapor, from the mind of every friend of Mr. Clay or Mr. 
 Dixon not determined to misunderstand me. It had been 
 said by distinguished, perhaps the most distinguished, men 
 in the Legislature — men aspiring to a seat in the Senate 
 of the United States themselves, and no friends of Mr. 
 Dixon, though some of them are found voting for him — 
 that Mr. Crittenden seemed to think that Kentucky was 
 made for him; that she had done every thing for him, to 
 the detriment and neglect of others of her sons equally 
 meritorious; that he had been in the Senate; that he quit 
 that high station, and run for governor, to the exclusion of 
 other distinguished gentlemen, who had been anxious for the 
 latter place ; that he had resigned the government of Kentucky, 
 before the expiration of his term, to take a prominent and 
 profitable post in the Cabinet at Washington; that now, in 
 the grasping spirit of a monopolist of all the honors of hia 
 country, he was seeking to provide himself a seat in the 
 Senate two years in advance of the vacancy; that Mr. 
 
JOURNAL LETTEB. 415 
 
 Dixon had been thrust aside, in 1848, to make room for 
 Mr. Crittenden; that, in 1851, he had encountered the full 
 storm of the contest with the Democracy; that he had been 
 overborne by a union of Old Hunkers and Abolitionists; and 
 had fallen the victim to his devotion to the New Constitution, 
 and to the rights of the St)uthern slaveholders; that he should 
 be rewarded for his toils, his sufferings, and his defeats. 
 These things had not then, though they have since, been 
 said in debate. Every body knows, however, that they were 
 urged incessantly and with powerful effect against Mr. Crit- 
 tenden, out of the House, in every circle. 
 
 In scanning the elements of opposition to Mr. Crittenden, 
 and in tracing the sources of division among the Whigs, those 
 which I have enumerated are open, and lie upon the surface. 
 There is another deeper and far more dangerous, which is 
 working at the vitals, which, if not healed or eradicated, 
 will, in my judgment, disorganize the party, and scatter its 
 elements, never again to be united under a common head, 
 with common objects, and upon its ancient principles of social 
 organization, law, and policy — at least during this generation. 
 This sore I endeavored to touch, when I spoke, as I shall do 
 while I write, with tenderness and caution, but with truth. 
 I did it then, as I do now, with a sincere desire to vindicate 
 historic accuracy, and to prevent the mischief which must 
 inevitably result to a common cause, from the misunderstand- 
 ing and heartburnings among the respective friends of two of 
 the greatest, at any rate the most renowned, statesmen which 
 this age of Kentucky has produced. 
 
 This spark of contention which other men, not I, are 
 endeavoring to fan into a flame of conflagration, had its 
 origin in the action of the convention at Philadelphia, which 
 nominated General Taylor for the Presidency in 1848, and 
 in the course pursued by the Kentucky delegation in that 
 convention. Those who remember the incidents of that day, 
 will be at no loss to recall the efforts made by sundry Demo- 
 crats, and a few Whigs, to fasten upon Mr. Crittenden the 
 Euthorship of a letter to Mr. Anderson, of Cincinnati, in 
 27 
 
416 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 which he was made to assail, Mr. Clay. The letter was 
 published; its contents will be remembered, as also that it was 
 proved a sheer forgery. The effort proved that it was designed 
 to fasten upon Mr. Crittenden the charge and the guilt of 
 insincerity and intrigue. The design was to sow distrust, and 
 to plant the seeds of future alienation and quarrel between 
 the two great men, from whose thorough union and coopera- 
 tion the Whig party in Kentucky had been preserved in one 
 unbroken and victorious column, firm in power and purpose, 
 through all the disasters and defeats which it had sustained 
 in the national conflicts. It was the reserved corps — fresh, 
 unbroken in ranks and spirit, upon which the oft beaten line 
 of battle, with its baffled, though still unconquered, leader, 
 could always fall back, and Xinder the cover of its well-trained 
 guns, repair the disasters of every hard-fought field. 
 
 Divide and conquer was the maxim of the Romans, by 
 a rigid adherence to which they steadily marched to the 
 subjugation of the world. 
 
 In the contest of 1848, the double contest — first, between 
 the two parties, and, secondly, between the friends of General 
 Taylor and Mr. Clay — Mr. Crittenden's position was, in the 
 last degree, delicate and distressing. No man, esdowed with 
 a spirit less pure, sensitive and disinterested, could have ex- 
 tricated himself from such a position with grace and honor, 
 nor could he, without sacrificing for himself every hope of 
 power and distinction, connected with the struggle, or grow- 
 ing out of its successful termination. Truth is a jewel always, 
 set it in what case you may. On the present occasion, it 
 must be exposed naked, to the fullest light in which it can 
 be placed. 
 
 After General Taylor's first glorious successes in Mexico, 
 every body knows that the eyes of the Whig party, including 
 Mr. Clay's warmest and most devoted friends and admirers, 
 were turned to him, as the man most likely to restore the*' 
 fallen fortunes of the party. The questions of the annexation 
 of Texas, and the war with Mexico, which grew out of it, 
 were popular. The election of 1844 was decisive upon the 
 
JOURNAL LETTER. 417 
 
 questions of boundary and extension. Nothing else could 
 have borne Colonel Polk to the Presidency. Conquest, war 
 and aggrandizement are always popular. These were peculiar 
 elements in the quarrel with Mexico, and the acquisition of 
 Texas and the Pacific coast, which made our late successes 
 doubly /dear to the nation. Who so likely to command their 
 suffrages and admiration as the dauntless soldier who had car- 
 ried forward in triumph the banner of his country, and 
 advanced the boundaries of her empire along with it — the 
 hero who had executed, with the most complete success, in 
 the field, the resolves of the people at the polls — the fixed 
 policy of the nation? General Taylor was a Whig, and had 
 consented that his name might be used in the Presidential 
 contest. Every body knows that, for a long time, it was 
 believed that Mr. Clay would not be, and did not desire 
 to be, a candidate. By a reference to the card which he 
 published over his own name, upon his return from the east, 
 in 1848, it will be perceived that he states himself such had 
 been the impression with regard to his own personal views; 
 that, under that impression^ many of his friends, he had no 
 doubt, 'from " patriotic motives," had turned their eyes and 
 hopes to another citizen. From the observations he had 
 made, and the information he had received, however, during 
 his visit to the east, he had become satisfied that there were 
 several States, which he there enumerates, that would cast 
 their votes for him, and for no other Whig. One of them, 
 Ohio, a State always steady to Mr. Clay, did actually vote 
 against General Tayloi*. Under these circumstances, and 
 under the urgent solicitations of his friends, Mr. Clay thought 
 it necessary to announce, over his own signature, his purpose 
 to permit his name to be placed before the convention. These 
 things show, what every body, however, knows to be true, 
 that when General Taylor was taken up so generally by the 
 party, Mr. Clay was not expected to be a candidate. He 
 says so himself, and explains the course of some pi his friends 
 upon that hypothesis. This determination of Mr. Clay found 
 Mr. Crittenden in the same position, with many, very many 
 
418 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 of Mr. Clay's other friends. To him it must have been 
 peculiarly embarrassing. To Mr. Clay and his cause, he had 
 adhered with unshaken constancy through all his fortunes. 
 He had been tried by every test. He had been buckled 
 to the breast of the giant leader of the opposition, General 
 Jackson, with hooks of steel. He found himself now in a 
 situation not sought by himself, and for which he was in no 
 wise responsible. He found himself the cynosure of all eyes. 
 He found himself suspected and watched by both parties — 
 hostile parties within his own camp, led T^y the most renowned 
 soldier on the one hand, and the most renowned civilian and 
 statesman on the other — both Whigs — and the friends of each 
 struggling for the truncheon of command, and looking to his 
 influence as decisive between these rival friends. Mr. Crit- 
 tenden stood aloof; he could not, as an honorable man, do 
 otherwise ; he awaited, without interference, the decision of 
 his party, prepared to aid to the utmost that decision, for 
 whomsoever it might be cast. He had certainly aided General 
 Taylor's cause, when no man expected Mr. Clay to become 
 again a candidate ; he certainly informed General Taylor, 
 so soon as Mr. Clay's name was before the public, that he 
 could go no further; that habit, friendship, duty made him 
 prefer Mr. Clay to any one else. He certainly declared 
 this preference, after General Taylor's nomination, and within 
 my hearing, in a public speech at Versailles — the most bril- 
 liant, the most beautiful that even he ever delivered. I ques- 
 tioned him in private as to that declaration — whether I had 
 understood him correctly. He answered with a rebuking 
 eye, the third rebuke that I ever received from that glorious 
 and eloquent eye, that he preferred Mr. Clay, and had said 
 it. He said it, and I so reported him. The sketch of the 
 debate between Mr. Powell and himself that day, published 
 afterward in the Yeoman, signed " Senex," was taken by 
 myself. He said it, and he can not lie. 
 
 General Taylor was nominated without Mr. Crittenden's 
 interference. He was withdrawn from the Senate against 
 his wishes and his interests to make the gubernatorial race. 
 
JOURNAL LETTER. 419 
 
 WliO can suppose that Mr. Crittenden desired to quit the 
 Senate of the United States to become governor of Ken- 
 tucky — to withdraw himself from the eye of the nation, and 
 from a scene where he was winning golden opinions from 
 all men of all parties? When he retired, the entire Senate, 
 men of all parties, met at a public dinner, tendered to the 
 Kentucky Senator, as a voluntary homage rendered to his 
 graceful character and generous nature — a character and 
 nature which, amid the heated conflicts of party, for many 
 years, in which he had ever borne a, prominent and distin- 
 guished lead, had left, at their close, this beloved and stainless 
 gentleman without an enemy. 
 
 Who can believe that John J. Crittenden could voluntarily, 
 or from motives of selfish ambition, have quitted such a 
 situation, and such a scene, to enter the lists with Lazarus 
 Powell; to traverse the State of Kentucky, making stump- 
 speeches, at his age, for the gubernatorial chair, and that, 
 too, pending a revolution, which was to cut that chair from 
 under him before his term expired? The idea is absurd — 
 the charge is false as it is cruel. It was an act of sacrifice, 
 complete self-sacrifice, to the wishes of his friends, and for 
 the salvation of his party. There were many of those who 
 said, and many who believed, that, in the result of General 
 Taylor's election, Crittenden would become secretary of state ; 
 that he had sacrificed Mr. Clay to his own ambition; that 
 General Taylor was his friend and relation; that conscious 
 of his own inexperience in public affairs, and ignorance 
 of public men, he would lean entirely upon Mr. Crittenden; 
 that he would organize an administration of his own friends, 
 and under his own lead; that he would keep Mr. Clay out 
 of the Senate; that he had "scotched" and would kill that 
 leader; that he would be President, de facto, and in a 
 situation where he could play for the succession, with ample 
 means, and the surest prospect of success. Kentucky had 
 declared, in convention, against Mr. Clay — it was falsely 
 ascribed to Crittenden's influence. He was judged by vulgar 
 
420 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 men and vulgar maxims. Time and his own actions have 
 proved that he was falsely judged, as he will ever be by 
 such men and such maxims. 
 
 The post of secretary of state was tendered to him, as 
 it ought to have been, and rejected. More anxious to vin- 
 dicate his honor, and preserve his party, so far as he could, 
 entire, than to extend his power, or play for a crown, he 
 remained, like a sentinel, on the post where he had been 
 placed, negligent, as he has ever been, of self, and firm, 
 as he will ever be, to honor and to duty. Mr. Clay returned 
 to the Senate. Calumny itself is dumb here, and dare not 
 whisper that Crittenden tried, or could be induced to try, 
 to prevent it. Efforts, it is said, were made to tempt him 
 to such an exertion of his influence. God knows — I know 
 nothing — but I would have been sworn in advance that 
 such efibrts, if they had been made, would have been fruit- 
 less. This man is utterly without selfishness. I know him 
 well, and have known him long in every relation of life. 
 He is without the hardness which ambition, to be eminently 
 successful, ought to wear. "Ambition should be made of 
 sterner stuff." In struggles for his friends, he is game 
 and fearless — he is the very type of courage; though even 
 there, in the rage of warfare, and the din of conflict, his 
 bearing is marked by some thing of the gentleness and 
 courtesy, which distinguishes for ever the knight and the gen- 
 tleman, even in the shock of war, and the storm of battle. 
 
 Iii a struggle among or against his friends, he is powerless 
 and unresisting as an unweaned lamb. 
 
 Even now, in the conflict of mighty passions and mighty 
 interests going on in Frankfort, where there are congregated 
 so many elements to crush him — when men who have here- 
 tofore hated each other (examples are at hand, but I will 
 not be personal), and hate each other now, are firmly com- 
 bined to pull him down, and are ready to fly at each other's 
 throats the moment the sacrifice is completed — even now, 
 when his own personal stake, in the game which is playing, 
 
JOURNAL LETTER. 421 
 
 is so tremendous, he is " led as a lamb to the slaughter, and 
 as a sheep before its shearers; he is dumb, and opens not his 
 mouth." 
 
 It was in this connection, and in view of this charge of 
 infidelity to Mr. Clay, that I spoke of Mr. Crittenden's 
 conduct in the senatorial election of 1830-31 and 1831-32, 
 to show his steady support of Mr. Clay for twenty-five 
 years. With the events of that period, and with Mr. Crit- 
 tenden's motives and conduct at that time, my position made 
 me perfectly familiar, and my memory has treasured well the 
 facts. The Adams' administration had fallen in 1828, and 
 Kentucky had cast her vote, by a majority of eight thousand, 
 in favor of General Jackson. The principal point of attack 
 on that administration, was a charge of corrupt bargain 
 between Mr. Clay and Mr. Adams, by which the vote of 
 Kentucky in Congress was to be cast for Mr. Adams, and, 
 in the event of his success, Mr. Clay was to be made secre- 
 tary of state, and thereby placed in the order of succession. 
 Mr. Clay was made secretary of state, and the attack upon 
 the administration, of which he was the chief in the Cabinet, 
 was kept up on this charge alone during the four years 
 of its existence. The course of that administration was 
 blameless, nor to this day can any censure be pronounced 
 against it, even by that party who hunted it to the death, 
 save this only charge as to the manner in which it was 
 formed. 
 
 This is history, though your correspondents seem to think 
 it sarcasm. In 1830^31, an election of United States Senator 
 was to be held, to fill a vacancy which was to occur the fol- 
 lowing spring. At that time, John J. Crittenden was in the 
 very prime of his manhood, younger, by several years, than I 
 am now. He stood, at that time, next to Mr. Clay, proximus 
 magna intervalo, as some thought, but certainly next to Mr. 
 Clay he stood in popularity, and in reputation for genius and 
 oratory. I had completed my legal studies under his tuition, 
 and was, at that time, connected with him as his partner in 
 the practice of law. He was in the prime of manhood and 
 
422 
 
 T. P. MARSHALL. 
 
 the flush of early fame. He had commenced his professional 
 career in the Green river country, at Russellville. He was 
 beloved, in that ardent region, above all the men of his time. 
 He had been sent to the Senate of the United States several 
 years before, to fill a vacancy in an unexpired term, when, 
 as well as I remember, he was barely of the senatorial age. 
 He had retired from the Senate at the expiration of the 
 term, under the pressure of narrow circumstances and an 
 increasing family, and subsequently removed to Frankfort 
 to prosecute his profession in the superior courts held there. 
 For several years he ran for the legislature, at the earnest 
 solicitation of his party, to his own great inconvenience and 
 loss, against a clearly ascertained party majority of one hun- 
 dred and fifty votes; yet was always victorious — his political 
 enemies voting for him from personal admiration ""and regard. 
 Under all these circumstances, and when there was a party 
 majority of several votes — four I think — in the legislature 
 against Mr. Clay, who was to be, and did become the next 
 candidate for the presidency, Mr. Crittenden was put in 
 nomination against Colonel Richard M. Johnson, and tied 
 him. That session there was no election. At that time, 
 Woodford, the county which I now represent, was repre- 
 sented by a Democrat, a devoted friend of General Jackson. 
 He was instructed, by a majority of his constituents, to vote 
 for Mr. Crittenden, and disobeyed. The next year the 
 elections in Kentucky were made to turn upon the choice 
 of a Senator. Mr. Crittenden was every where considered 
 as the candidate. The state was revolutionized, and a 
 majority returned favorable to his election. Mr. Clay was 
 not staked, nor his name periled in this race. If defeat had 
 been sustained, it would have been Mr. Crittenden's defeat. 
 This is exactly what I said in debate, and these are his- 
 torical facts. In 1831-32, with a majority thus won and 
 constituted, in the judgment of Mr. Clay's friends throughout 
 the Union — in .the judgment of Mr. Crittenden, at least, 
 here — the interests of the opposition would best be served 
 iby placing Mr. Clay himself in the Senate of the United 
 
JOURNAL LETTER, 423 
 
 States. Had Mr. Crittenden pressed his own claims, had 
 he been selfish, it is certain, beyond question or controversy, 
 that Mr. Clay could not, and would not, have pushed his 
 younger friend and second from the place for which he had 
 contended. Mr. Crittenden must have been elected, or di- 
 vided and distracted his party, as it is now divided and dis- 
 tracted, running at the head of a minority of his personal 
 friends, playing for the support of his enemies, and crying 
 out that Mr. Clay had had honors enough; that it was time 
 for him to give place to younger men; that it was time for 
 the young chivalry, who had borne the brunt and blows of 
 war, to wear its laurels, and enjoy its honors. These things 
 were said. Mr. Crittenden had friends who believed that, 
 with equal opportunities, and upon the broader theatre of 
 the National Legislature, his talents would soon place him 
 abreast with the foremost In the race of glory and fame. He 
 recognized Mr. Clay as the great head of opposition. He 
 deemed his presence in the Senate necessary to its organiza- 
 tion and success. In his judgment, Mr. Clay ought to have 
 been the man. He silenced and satisfied his own devoted 
 friends, and gracefully and voluntarily yielded to the national 
 leader a seat which that leader would not have claimed, and 
 for which he could not, without indecency, have contended 
 with a friend. 
 
 This is the substance of what I said, and said it to prove 
 that John J. Crittenden was twenty years ago exactly what 
 John J. Crittenden has ever been, and what he is now. This 
 has been construed into a boast of Mr. Crittenden's friends 
 through me, that he is the founder of Mr. Clay's fortunes — 
 the architect of his fame and greatness. He the founder of 
 Mr. Clay's greatness and fame, and this from me, who have 
 studied Mr. Clay's political history as I have studied that of 
 no other statesmen, living or dead. From 1806 to 1851, he 
 has written nothing, said nothing which has been published, 
 from his speech on the line of the Perdido to his great letter 
 the other day on Secession and the Union, which I have not 
 conned and pondered. I charge that Mr. Crittenden was the 
 
424 T. r. MAESHALL. 
 
 founder of his fortunes — the architect of his fame ! Mr. Clay 
 ■was in the Senate then, as now, the thunderer of the scene, 
 when John J. Crittenden was at college. I cited, as matter 
 of history, with every portion of which I was familiarly ac- 
 quainted, to show that Mr. Crittenden had never considered 
 himself the rival of Mr. Clay, whatever others might have 
 thought, or desired him to be or attempt. That Mr. Clay 
 was before him in age, in glory, in the race of ambition; 
 that twenty years ago he recognized the fact; that, so far 
 from timidity in the cause of a friend, he was willing to peril 
 his young fame, and did peril it, in a cause which had just 
 been beaten at home; that, so far from being a selfish mono- 
 polist of honor, insensible to the just claims of others, he 
 had recognized the position and the claims of a man then 
 more distinguished than himself, the indisputable head of his 
 party, and after contending with the courage of the young 
 shepherd of Israel against the Goliah of the Philistines, had 
 voluntarily and modestly laid his trophies and his spoils at 
 the feet of his commander-in-chief. I charge that Mr. Clay 
 owes his greatness and his influence to Mr. Crittenden, or any 
 thing else but his own genius! My object, if I were sane, 
 would certainly be to reconcile, not inflame — to attune this 
 jarring string to harmony, that the whole Whig instrument, 
 from bass to treble, swept by the great master of the band, 
 may again swell into one soul-stirring peal of sympathy. 
 
 I risk offending Mr. Clay's friends, or seek to add that 
 influence, that commanding influence, to give consistency, 
 direction, dignity, and force to the beggarly elements at 
 work to ruin that man, to whom I am known to be devoted 
 on personal as well as political grounds — to love as though 
 he were my elder brother! I said that the Adams' adminis- 
 tration had fallen, and that Kentucky, among others, struck a 
 fatal blow. Is not this historically true? Was this state- 
 ment, under the explanations which I have given in the 
 House and here, aimed as a sarcasm at Mr. Clay, or can 
 it be wrested into an assertion that Mr. Crittenden was the 
 author of his greatness? Mr. Clay did fall in 1828, and 
 
JOUENAL LETTER. 425 
 
 from a lofty hight; but sprang, as he always springs, like 
 the antique wrestler, the stronger from his fall, more terrible 
 on the rebound than he was ere shaken from his feet. I 
 have studied his life, his speeches, his actions, his character; 
 I have heard him at the bar and in the Senate; I have seen 
 him in his contests with other men, when all the stormy 
 passions of his tempestuous soul were lashed by disappoint- 
 ment and opposition to the foaming rage of the ocean, when 
 all the winds are unchained, and sweep in full career over 
 the free and bounding bosom of the deep. He owes less of 
 his greatness to education or to art than any man living. He 
 owes less of his commanding influence to other men than any 
 great leader I have ever known, or of whom I have ever 
 read. He consults no body, he leans upon no body, he fears 
 no body; he wears nature's patent of nobility for ever on his 
 brow; he stalks among men with an unanswerable and never- 
 doubting air of command; his sweeping and imperial pride, 
 his indomitable will, his unquailing courage, challenge from all 
 submission or combat. With him there can be no neutrality. 
 Death, tribute, or the koran, is his motto. Great in speech, 
 great in action, his greatness is all his own. He is indepen- 
 dent alike of history or the schools ; he knows little of either, 
 and despises both. His ambition, his spirit, and his eloquence 
 are all great, natural, and entirely his own. If he is like 
 any body, he does not know it. He has never studied 
 models, and if he had, his pride would have rescued him 
 from the fault of imitation. He stands among men in tower- 
 ing and barbaric grandeur; in all the hardihood and rudeness 
 of perfect originality; independent of the polish, and beyond 
 the reach of art. His vast outline, and grand, but wild and 
 undefined, proportions, liken him to a huge mass of granite, 
 torn, in some convulsion of nature, from a mountain's side, 
 which any effort of the chisel would only disfigure, and 
 which no instrument in the sculptor's studio could grasp or 
 comprehend. 
 
 I have acquitted myself, I hope, from what I consider the 
 most serious charge urged against me by your correspond- 
 
426 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 ents — that of having indirectly assailed Mr. Clay's reputation, 
 or of irritating the friends of that gentleman against Mr. 
 Crittenden. As to my taunts and sarcasms, and thrusts at 
 Mr. Dixon, which, it seems, are the cause of this now en- 
 venomed and incurable quarrel, a few words, and I am done. 
 Here, as before, I shall write, as nearly as I can, what I 
 said. If I was understood as assailing the character of Mr. 
 Dixon, or the feelings of his friends, I was grossly miscon- 
 ceived. I certainly prefer Mr. Crittenden for the Senate to 
 him, and, if I did not, my constituents most certainly do. I 
 certainly do not approve the course of himself and his friends 
 in this contest. Claiming, as they do, to be members of the 
 Whig party, and anxious for the unanimity and success of 
 that party, as they claim to be, they ought, in my judgment, 
 most certainly, to have submitted their favorite, in the first 
 instance, to the common law of all parties and communities 
 of men, that is, the will and judgment of the majority of the 
 members. Their preference for Mr. Dixon I have never cen- 
 sured, and am not surprised at. It can not, however, be 
 greater, more ardent, nor do I think it better founded, than 
 the preference of Mr. Crittenden's friends for him. I do not 
 think their demand, that Mr. Crittenden should be balloted 
 against Mr. Dixon in the Houses, was either generous or just, 
 as a fair mode of ascertaining the respective strength of the 
 two gentlemen before their own party. It is no disparage- 
 ment to Mr. Dixon to say that Mr. Crittenden has more of 
 national character and a wider fame than he. Mr. C. has 
 been long in the national councils. He has been twice 
 a member of the Federal Cabinet, and has been recently 
 named as a probable candidate for the first or second place 
 on the Presidential ticket. These things alone, independent 
 of any comparison between the original talents or personal 
 merits of the gentlemen, make it perfectly obvious that Mr. 
 C.'s defeat would be more an object with the Democratic 
 party than the defeat of Mr. Dixon. Any other comparison 
 I never instituted, nor do I now. I never understood, nor 
 can I now understand, the motive of Mr. Dixon's friends in 
 
JOURNAL LETTEE. 427 
 
 refusing a caucus, unless it be that they are conscious of 
 being in a minority, and that they hoped, by dragging Mr. 
 Crittenden into a contest before the Houses, the Democracy 
 might determine to select the weaker candidate, and claim a 
 party victory in the defeat of a gentleman -who is certainly 
 considered, throughout the United States, the strongest man 
 in Kentucky after Mr. Clay. I stated, in the House, that I 
 had known Mr. Dixon twenty years ; that I had often served 
 with him in the legislature; that I enjoyed his acquaintance, 
 and I hoped some portion of his personal friendship; that for 
 personal honor, and especially for firmness and high personal 
 gallantry, I did not know his superior. I stated that I had 
 voted for him myself for governor ; that, in the county which 
 I represented, he had polled the full Whig majority; that I 
 was then, and had always been, before I knew Mr. Critten- 
 den's strength, prepared, and had avowed it in a large meet- 
 ing of the Whigs, to vote for Mr. Dixon for the Senate of 
 the United States, if he received the nomination of the 
 majority of the party to which he belonged, and with which 
 I was acting. More than this, I could not say — more than 
 this, I could not do. As to my unlucky allusion to Lazarus 
 and the resurrection, it was playfully done. Governor Powell 
 was himself in the lobby at the time, and heard it all. It 
 has, I am sure, not given him the slightest offense, nor does 
 he consider me as having insulted him, or outraged propriety 
 or decorum. In sober earnest, and in simple historic verity, 
 Mr. Crittenden beat Mr. Powell, and Mr. Powell beat Mr. 
 Dixon. There is no denying this, and I, at least, am not to 
 blame for it. It is strange justice, to say the least of it, to 
 reward Mr. Dixon for his defeat by giving him the seat which 
 was Mr. Crittenden's, and which he quitted with reluctance, 
 and at great loss of position, to obtain a victory over this 
 same Lazahis. It does look to me like tearing the well- 
 earned laurels from the victor's brow to adorn the triumph of 
 a vanquished leader. It would be to strip the wreath from 
 Fabius or Scipio to bind the temple of Terentius Varro. 
 Thanks and gratitude and sympathy are certainly due to Mr. 
 
428 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 Dixon for his untiring exertions in an unfortunate campaign. 
 His own defeat was the defeat of his party; but I am unable 
 to perceive that it will be bettered or atoned for by the pros- 
 tration of Mr. Crittenden. 
 
 I can not conceive how your correspopdent could under- 
 stand me as taunting or thrusting with ill-natured and ill- 
 timed sarcasm at Mr. Dixon, unless they consider the praise 
 liberally but justly bestowed, I think, upon my friend, as so 
 much subtracted from theirs. They forgot to mention the 
 terms employed by Bates, the Democrat, and by the Whig 
 gentlemen, Mr, McKee and Mr. Mitchell, in their replies to 
 me. They could not have been originated by my remarks. 
 Suffice it to say, that, notwithstanding my eiforts to withdraw 
 Mr. Crittenden from nomination, the Senate balloted for him 
 before they were apprized of his withdrawal in the House. 
 In this state of the case, I withdrew my opposition, and the 
 ballot went on in the House of Representatives. Contrary 
 to my fears, the Democracy disdained to abandon their own 
 standard, and to side with a minority of their enemies. They 
 would not steal a victory. The result was, Mr. Crittenden 
 beat Mr. Dixon twelve votes with the Whigs. In that most 
 impassioned and eloquent speech, delivered by Mr. Mitchell, 
 of Montgomery, the young gentleman who nominated Mr. 
 Dixon, he stated exactly what I had previously said was 
 alleged by his party against Mr. Crittenden. He charged 
 that we were running a parcel of bob-tailed nags from our 
 stable (these were his precise expressions) against their gal- 
 lant steed, till we tired him down, when we would bring out 
 our favorite horse, fresh and unblown, to make the best heat, 
 and take the cup from their courser, exhausted by this jockey- 
 ing system. He said that Mr. Crittenden had stood one ballot, 
 to be sure, but he knew that he would be immediately with- 
 drawn, and the old game renewed. These taunts and this 
 opposition to Mr. Crittenden, took me, from the first, by 
 surprise, nor do I now fully comprehend their motive, or their 
 cause. He is not here, and his friends are charged with a 
 heavy responsibility. They have never be£n afraid to trust 
 
JOUENAL LETTER. 429 
 
 him before the Whig party in the legislature, and have always 
 offered to do so. 
 
 They are not afraid to make the question in the elections 
 of 1853, and to throw him before the people of the state. 
 Democrats and all. These reiterated taunts, however, that 
 he is skulking — he, John J. Crittenden, afraid to trust him- 
 self before the Whig party; that his friends rely upon finesse, 
 and manoeuver, and intrigue; that the lion's skin has failed, 
 and is now to be eked out by the fox's; that, although not 
 at all afraid of Mr. Powell in 1848, in 1851 he had suddenly 
 lost all nerve and manhood, and trembled in the presence of 
 Mr. Dixon like a whipped school-boy — have roused the metal 
 of Mr. C.'s friends at last.' They did not wish to involve 
 their champion in a quarrel with one of his own party. 
 They desired, and they labored to keep the peace, and pre- 
 serve the harmony of the party. They were willing to submit 
 themselves to its judgment and its will. But this oft-repeated 
 charge, that Mr. Crittenden shrunk from a conflict to which 
 he was exposing his friends, one after another — although John 
 B. Thompson was the only friend of his balloted for before 
 his own nomination — has roused his party at last. In reply 
 to Mr. Mitchell, I was instructed, by those who had the right 
 to give such instructions, to announce that Mr. Crittenden's 
 name would never be withdrawn. Our leader has quit his tent, 
 and is in the field, at the head of his friends, an undoubted 
 majority of his own party. We have hung his banner on the 
 outer wall — he will die at least with harness on his back. He 
 is a candidate for the Senate of the United States, and will 
 so remain, till the Democracy slaughter him here, or the 
 people decide against him in the election of 1853. I called 
 him Bayard, I believe ; that ought not to have enraged any 
 body. I call him Bayard now, the knight without fear, and 
 without reproach. He is, as Bayard was, adorned with all 
 courage and all courtesy. He is (I love to praise a great 
 and good man) — he is a mirror, in which the young chivalry 
 of Kentucky may glass and fashion itself to all manly virtue, 
 and every gentlemanly grace. 
 
430 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 There are examples enough in the history of heroes to 
 cheer us on. We have rendered"^ retreat impossible to our 
 chief. Agathocles, in ancient times, when he invaded Africa 
 and Sicily, burned his ships, and showed his troops there was 
 no safety but in victory. Cortes, when he invaded Mexico, 
 did the same, and cast the wide Atlantic between him and 
 safety, without a prow or sail to bear him oiF. The last of 
 the great barons of England, king-making Warwick, when 
 pressed to his fall, brought to the front of his line the noble 
 charger that had borne him in triumph over a hundred fields. 
 The good steed bent his frontlet to his lord, who kissed the 
 forehead of the generous animal, then plunged the dagger to 
 his heart. The troops saw that their leader could not fly, 
 even were he base enough to attempt it. Taunt us no more. 
 Our leader's ships are burnt — his horse is dead. He can not 
 fly if he, would — he would not if he could. The banner which 
 floats over him is broad, and bright, and spotless, as Bayard's 
 oriflamme adorned with the lilies of France. I will not push 
 out the parallel — I will not name Charles De Bourbon, high 
 constable of France. 
 
 Should Bayard fall, he will be found with his feet to the 
 foe, and his face upturned to the heavens. We will wrap 
 him in his own banner for a winding-sheet — stained with his 
 blood, it shall wave no more. 
 
 Consider you these as taunts? They are, however, the head 
 and front of my offending. 
 
 Mr. Prentice, in my humble judgment, the defeat or with- 
 drawal of Mr. Crittenden at this time would be the greatest 
 disaster that has befallen the Whig party in twenty years. 
 All hope of reconciliation in the legislature is impossible, I 
 think. In my judgment, the majority of the Whigs should 
 adjourn promptly and at once this vexed question to the 
 people, to be decided by the elections of 1853. The Demo- 
 crats will close with this proposition, I believe. If it is not 
 done, the session will be wasted in the struggle, and the 
 Whigs will be saddled with the whole responsibility. The 
 Democrats will not sit beyond the sixty days, and the session 
 
JOUENAL LETTER. 431 
 
 will close with the most important business untouched. Ad- 
 journ the senatorial election till the next general assembly, I 
 say. The people are never vexed by the reference of such a 
 question to them. Without reference to Mr. Crittenden, I 
 should be of this opinion ; with reference to him, I would 
 rather trust him in the hands of the people than to the per- 
 sonal factions now raging in Frankfort. I have long been an 
 exiled and a branded man; for myself, I scorn to beg or to 
 apologize for aught I have thought, said^ or done in times 
 past. I have never betrayed or sought to divide any party 
 with whom I professed to act. "Vyhen I could not act with 
 the majority — when I could not, with a safe conscience, pursue 
 their decisions, I have quit them openly and fairly, and acted 
 with the other side. I hope you may find room for this 
 letter, long as it is. 
 
 28 
 
432 
 
 T. F. MAKSHALL. 
 
 SPEECH IN OPPOSITION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF THE 
 KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION, 
 
 Delivered at Versailles, Kentucky, Jwne 25, 1855. 
 
 Mr. Marshall, during his political career, adhered with marked consistency 
 to the principles of the old Whig party. In our introduction, we have 
 noticed the' causes that produced the separation in 1844. Subsequent to 
 that tiine, he has regarded the party as abandoning their principles on 
 several important national questions. He was opposed to the repeal of 
 the Missouri Compromise. When the American organization was origi- 
 nated, he urged the Whiga of his State to plant themselves firmly on their 
 old principles, and stand aloof from it, telling them that, otherwise, dis- 
 ruption would be the result. His counsel was not heeded — the Whigs, 
 in the main, identified themselves with the new party. During the 
 canvass of 1865, for the purpose of discussing the subject before the people, 
 Mr. Marshall announced himself a candidate for. Congress in his old 
 district. He reached Versailles on the 25th of June, and addressed a 
 large and attentive audience. After reading and commenting upon the 
 Philadelphia platform, and expressing himself satisfied with its resolves 
 upon the slavery question, he spoke in substance as follows: 
 
 It seems strange that the existence of the Deity, and his 
 superintendence of the world, should be among Sam's secrets. 
 I had supposed these matters were extensively known, and gen- 
 erally received among men, before the advent of the new party. 
 It is strange that there should be a Protestant party in this 
 ■country, bound together by an oath of secresy, under a tho- 
 rough and complete organization, whose objects are political, 
 owing allegiance to a government unknown to the constitution 
 and the laws, with objects and with men concealed from all 
 but the initiated. An invperium in imperio, seeking to grasp 
 all power in this country, legislative and administrative, from 
 a constable to the president of the United States. 
 
 I look around tae upon a crowd of men, familiar to me all 
 my life. I see men who have been the tried friends of my bosom 
 
KlSrOW-NOTHIlSfG ORGANIZATION. 433 
 
 — the companions of my heart — men who have stood by me 
 in every variety of fortune, through good and evil report — 
 men who have wrapped themselves about me like the traveler's 
 cloak in the fable, to shield and to shelter me when the 
 etorm had raged the loudest and the fiercest, and these men, 
 bound by an oath not to reveal, even to me, the fact, the 
 simple fact, that they are members of this order until the dis- 
 pensing power of the general council authorize the disclo- 
 sure ! The order, so far as I understand it, seems an exact 
 copy of that instituted by Ignatius Loyola. Its objects were 
 universal empire, and the establishment of a religion by politi- 
 cal authority; Loyola's was Catholic; this is Protestant, Je- 
 suitism. Popular institutions can not subsist without entire 
 publicity in political transactions. 
 
 The new organization has promised a national platform. It 
 calls itself the "American party." In this they have failed 
 signally. The convention at Philadelphia were certainly know- 
 nothings — all know-nothings. There must have been some 
 principles, common to the entire order, which united and made 
 them one. These principles did not relate to slavery — on that 
 point the party broke into two. The party North were abo-' 
 lition ; the party South held no principles upon the subject 
 peculiar to themselves — they held nothing that had not been 
 avowed, aye, and acted on by the national democracy for 
 many years, and through fierce contests. What was it upon 
 which northern and southern know-nothingism agreed? What 
 was the point of contact between them? Nothing that I can 
 discover but the repeal of the naturalization laws, and the im- 
 position of political disabilities upon men of the Catholic com- 
 munion, whether of American or foreign birth. Upon these 
 points, the party North and the party South agreed. This is 
 all their nationality — -this is all their Americanism. These are 
 anti-American ideas. Religious toleration and the right of 
 expatriation are peculiar to this republic. These are the fea- 
 tures that distinguish our institutions from every form of 
 polity that has ever been known among men. I admit that 
 they could repeal the naturalization laws, by act of Congress, 
 
434 T. F. MABSHALL. 
 
 without violating the Federal Constitution. Whether they should 
 do so or not is a matter of sound discretion and policy. Re- 
 ligious liberty, however, in its largest and widest sense, is 
 established by the Constitution. If the party succeed in its 
 organization, it will be really and practically abridged. When 
 a party has a particular object — a single idea, paramount to 
 ail others, the distinguishing feature of their system — all ex- 
 perience has shown, that whenever they acquire the political 
 power, they carry this idea into legislation, and seek to make 
 it permanent by the sanctions of law. Catholic disabilities is 
 their leading object. They are sworn never to vote for a 
 Catholic for office. They consider such unfitted by his religion 
 to hold ofiSce in a republican government. They consider this 
 republic as seriously endangered by the practical operation of 
 that principle in the Constitution which declares that "no 
 religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any 
 ofiice or public trust under the United States." They seek to 
 establish a religious test. They can not do so, permanently, 
 without changing the Federal Constitution. If they get the 
 power, they will be inconsistent and stupid, unless they graft 
 upon the Constitution, and make a part of the fundamental 
 law their great idea— the idea upon which " Protestant civili- 
 zation" and the hopes of the world, in their judgment, de- 
 pend. They can only reach their object through a revolution 
 in the government. 
 
 There is, in my judgment, an awful significance in the recent 
 letter of Rev. R. J. Breckenridge to the Commonwealth. It 
 throws out, in distinct outline, the dark shadow of coming events. 
 The writ;er is a man of great genius. As the representative of 
 the religious element, he scorns to wear a mask, and writes over 
 his own proper signature. Whatever emanates from that source, 
 on many accounts, is worthy of the most attentive consideration. 
 Mr. Breckinridge, after asserting that the nationality of America 
 is to be sustained, her Protestant civilization to be perpetuated, 
 and her Federal Union to be preserved, by destroying the foreign 
 and Catholic influence, which he considers as in a greaT measure 
 now controlling our government and politics, proceeds in the 
 
KNOW-NOTHING OEGANIZATION. 435 
 
 following ominous language : " There is but one possible 
 method of dealing with the subject. The organized power of 
 society must be taken out of the hands of those who have be- 
 trayed these vast interests, and must be put into the hands of 
 those who will cherish them. Public opinion is the only in- 
 strument by which this great change can be eifeeted. The 
 first step of the revolution is political; the second is legal. 
 The first step involves the organization, and the triumph of a 
 party commensurate with the country — ' The American party' — 
 and that involves the overthrow of every party that resists its 
 ultimate objects, or resists the necessary means of attaining 
 these objects. Indeed, if this step were fully achieved, it 
 would be of less consequence to take a second one ; since the 
 laws, though bad, are endurable, and society is safe as soon 
 as it has finally put out of power all men and parties hostile to 
 our nationality, to our Protestant civilization, and to our Fed- 
 eral Union ; out of power with an overthrow incapable of being 
 repaired. And this is the reason why this great movement 
 excites such excruciating bitterness of hate, in its political 
 aspects, on the part of all against whom it is directed. Its 
 success is seen to be a finality and a fatality to them, etc." 
 This language, and the ideas thereby conveyed, arc most por- 
 tentously distinct. Taken in connection with the character of 
 the author, and his vast and controling influence in what he 
 calls " the religious element," in this great movement, they 
 become of the most intense importance. Mr. B. knows very 
 well that a party victory in a single election, a transient po- 
 litical success, would go but little way in the road he wishes 
 to travel. Mr. B. calls it a revolution. " The first step of 
 the revolution," he says, " is political ; the second is legal. Our 
 nationality is endangered ; our Protestant civilization is endan- 
 gered ; our Federal Union is endangered ; the preservation of 
 these constitutes our mission on earth." The country, of 
 whose purpose know-nothingism is the manifestation, has de- 
 termined to surround these great interests with " additional 
 safeguards." They who are opposed to the methods proposed 
 of furnishing adequate safeguards to nationality, civilization and 
 
436 T. p. MARSHALL. 
 
 union, "ought, in the judgment of the country," as Mr. B. 
 thinks and writes, "to be indiscriminately crushed." "We, 
 and our fathers," Mr. B. says, " have an unsettled account with 
 popery, many centuries old." It is clear, very clear, that the 
 revolution aimed at by the new party, and in the contempla- 
 tion of Mr. B., involves the total, repeal of the naturalization 
 laws, and the change of the Constitution of the United States, 
 in relation ■ to religious tests as qualification for office. It is 
 uncandid in the extreme, in the American party and their 
 order, to endeavor to deny or obscure their real objects. 
 There is nothing else but this legal revolution which discrimi- 
 nates them as a party. " Americans shall rule America." So 
 say I, so says every one. "But who are Americans?" By 
 our constitution and laws,, persons of a certain color born in 
 the United States, and others " naturalized" by law, are citi- 
 zens and Americans. They do rule America, and for some 
 seventy years have ruled it more peacefully and prosperously 
 than any other people ever were ruled. I contend that our 
 immediate ancestors have suffered nothing from papal oppres- 
 sions. The rival sects, the offspring of the Reformation, have 
 alternately persecuted each other, and as they have alternately 
 conquered, have held political power at home. The Church- 
 man persecuted the Puritan, the Puritan and Presbyterian 
 persecuted the Churchman, and both have persecuted the 
 Catholics. NeW England, Maryland, and Virginia, were set- 
 tled principally by exiles and refugees from religious intoler- 
 ance in England. The tolerant spirit of the gospel, the true 
 genius of Christianity, which is universal charity, the principle 
 of Luther, the true principle of the Reformation, never had 
 practical life till it was established here in our republic, and 
 by those institutions which they seek to overthrow. The body 
 politic, the grand corporation which is styled the United States 
 of America, is the only state or society of men ever known, 
 which, as a government, has no religion. 
 
 The Hindoo, Persian, Jew, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Bar- 
 barian, had all, their religious establishments, with their orders 
 of priesthood existing by law, and sustained by the power of 
 
KNOW-IiTOTHING OEGANIZATION. 437 
 
 the State. Christianity, after it triumphed over paganism, and 
 had sustained terrific persecutions from the Roman emperors, 
 formed a political alliance and became a part of the imperial 
 establishment. We know the result. The reformation of the 
 sixteenth century did not cure the evil. The three great di- 
 visions of the reformed churdl', the Lutheran or German, 
 under the confession of Augsburg, the Calvinistic with the 
 Presbyteriaai model of government, and the peculiar system of 
 dogmas tortured from the writings of St. Paul by the French 
 Reformer, and the Episcopal church of England, each sought 
 a political establishment in the several countries where they 
 obtained. Each considered itself as peculiarly intrusted with 
 the cause of Almighty God, and dealt with Catholics, heretics 
 and dissenters from what the dominant party called orthodoxy, 
 as though clothed with infinite judgment in divine things, and 
 with the mission of infinite vengeance for speculative errors 
 and sins of opinion. Luther, perhaps the greatest personage 
 who appeared in the church after its founder, was far, very far 
 in advance of the age in which he lived. He taught the doc- 
 trines of religious toleration, and practiced what he taught. 
 But he was not understood by his own times. Men had to be 
 educated to a truth so sublimely simple, through centuries of 
 mutual intolerance, sufi'ering and blood. It was reserved for 
 the founders of this republic to proclaim and establish the 
 great truth, that political government had nothing to do with 
 speculative opinions, religious dogmas, or forms of ecclesiasti- 
 cal polity. Of these matters the law "knows nothing." The 
 Bible is the only standard of religious truth. Each individual 
 man is an interpreter for himself. He needs no priest or me- 
 diator, but Christ in Heaven, and God is the only judge and 
 avenger of sin. - Political government guards life, liberty and 
 property. It takes cognizance of human action, only as it 
 affects others, in some one of these rights. It restrains the 
 liberty of no man, only where such liberty trenches upon the 
 equal rights of another. It interferes with opinion not at all 
 upon any subject; least of all in religion. That is an alfair 
 between the individual man and his Maker. 
 
438 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 To a free Bible, a free Press> a free Pulpit, and a svp+ptti 
 of religious belief and discipline absolutely voluntary and free, 
 without restraint or interference, our law has intrusted the 
 truth. Orthodoxy is an affair for the preachers, not for states- 
 men. The preacher is the advo^jate, the individual is the 
 judge. The law takes no part. Argument is the only coer- 
 cion in this world. No torture, no civil disability is allowed. 
 The convincing reasonings of fire, or social degradation, or 
 political disfranchisement are repealed here, and it was hoped 
 for ever. Penalties for heresies in opinion, for speculative 
 errors, are referred to the power who formed the human mind, 
 and who alone can judge it with perfect knowledge and per- 
 fect righteousness. 
 
 The Catholic religion in this country is a perfectly voluntary 
 system. The priesthood of that communion, have no means 
 here of enforcing this system, or punishing disobedience or 
 ' disbelief. The Catholic may stay away from the confessional, 
 as the Protestant may from preaching, there is no law or mag- 
 istrate to make him afraid. Right or wrong, this is our sys- 
 tem. In my judgment, it bears the impress of consummate 
 wisdom. Sam, however, judges differently. He affects to be 
 afraid of the temporal power of the Pope. I allege that the 
 temporal power or political authority of the Pope was never 
 acknowledged by any State or people out of his own domin- 
 ions, never, not in the times of Gregory, or Innocent, or 
 Boniface. As a temporal prince, the Pope treated, negoti- 
 ated, fought. He made alliances or waged war -mih Catholic 
 States and princes within the Peninsula or beyond the Alps 
 on terms of perfect political equality. No citizen of Venice 
 or Florence, no subject of Milan or Naples during the middle 
 ages, and after Italian- wars and politics became interwoven 
 with those of the transalpine nations, as part of the general 
 history of Europe, no Frenchman, German, Englishman or 
 Spaniard, though all Catholic, ever dreamed that he owed al- 
 legiance to the Pope as a temporal monarch, or was bound to 
 his holiness by any tie that interfered with his duty to his 
 own government, or made it sacrilege to bear arms against 
 
KNOW-NOTHING OE&ANIZATION. 439 
 
 the Pope in war. Charles V, the greatest Catholic monarch 
 of his day, the most devoted to the spiritual claims and juris- 
 diction of the Pope, the most decided and dangerous enemy 
 to Luther and the reformation, after endeavoring in vain, by a 
 long and subtle course of negotiation, in the sixteenth century, 
 to draw the Pope into an alliance against France, declared 
 war against him, sent an imperial army of German, Italian 
 and Spanish Catholics, commanded by a Catholic Prince, 
 Charles Bourbon, against the holy city itself. It was taken 
 and sacked with merciless ferocity — the Pope himself taken 
 captive, and confined, till the Emperor extorted such an alli- 
 ance, and such guarantees as pleased the victor. The tempo- 
 ral power of the Pope in the nineteenth century is indeed a 
 ghost wherewith to frighten the North American Republic. 
 Sam is indeed scared, timid youth, at shadows — shadows 
 thrown by do substance in existence, either now or in the 
 past; shadows the new creation of his own fears, or the in- 
 ventions of his wit, to frighten others, as malicious boys scare 
 babies, with stories of raw heads and bloody-bones. Persecu- 
 tion is ever found to multiply the persecuted sect, unless you 
 exterminate them. Leave the Catholics where the Constitu- 
 tion left them, or treat them, as the inquisition in Spain and 
 the Papal States in Italy treated heretics — burn them, and 
 burn them all. It is mere trifling in this organization to say 
 that to exclude a man from office or honor in a free state, to 
 place a whole class of native citizens in a rank below others, 
 on account of their religion, is not persecution on account 
 of religionj is not an abridgement of his religious liberty. 
 They say, in one of their resolves, that they do not mean to 
 interfere with the rights of conscience or religious belief. 
 The Catholics may worship God, after their own fashion, but 
 they will degrade them for it below the condition of free citi- 
 zens. They will place them in the caste of mulattoes, free 
 negroes and Indians. They had as well say, that they might 
 imprison or burn for religious opinions, and the victims might 
 still believe as they pleased. Gallileo when thrown into the 
 dungeon, still enjoyed philosophic freedom — he still believed 
 
440 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 that the earth revolved. Huss, when expiring in the flames 
 at Constance, and Servetus, at Geneva, enjoyed their religious 
 belief, and shouted and proclaimed it as though triumphing in 
 death. " An American Party " should be ashamed of such 
 wretched and shuffling sophistry. Shift the shoe to the other 
 foot. Gore the other ox and the party will shift its arguments 
 in a trice — they will roar you out civil and religious liberty, loud 
 as a young lion when roused from his jungle by the spear of 
 the hunter. Indeed, they tell you now, that for a Catholic 
 to hold office in this country, is an infraction of their Protes- 
 tant liberty. What would they say — ye gods! what would 
 they say, if the Catholics were actually banded together, as 
 they seek to band the Protestant sects together against them, 
 for the avowed purpose of excluding all American Protestants 
 froin office, and all native Americans not Catholics, from suf- 
 frage, as being inclined naturally to Protestantism. Let 
 Catholics and foreigners treat this party as they are actually 
 trying to use them, and you would hear the cry of persecution 
 raised lustily. They would obtest Heaven and earth, they 
 would rush to arms in defense. The badge, the universal 
 badge of Anglo-Saxon freedom, the right of representation, 
 would be torn from them only with their life. This right, if 
 extinguished, would be extinguished only in their blood. 
 
 In relation to the naturalization laws, there is, undoubtedly, 
 just cause of complaint for abuse and frauds practiced under 
 them. The true spirit of those laws is evaded, and their real 
 object defeated in very many instances by their defective exe- 
 cution, growing mainly out of the defective mode of proof of 
 the preliminary fact as provided by the laws themselves. In 
 this particular, I am and have long been in favor of their 
 amendment. 
 
 The intention of those laws, was that no alien should be 
 admitted to the rights of citizenship, or take the oath of abju- 
 ration and allegiance, till he had actually resided within the 
 limits of the United States or some of her territories, five 
 years. Moreover such alien must have declared his purpose 
 to become a citizen three years before his admission to take 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 441 
 
 the oath. In point of fact, according to the present mode of 
 executing the laws, and the mode of proof under them, aliens 
 are in very many instances admitted, who have not been in 
 the country six months. These evils and abuses could be 
 completely corrected, and the naturalization laws enforced ac- 
 cording to their real intent, by revision and amendment. The 
 object could be effected by means of offices ,of registry in 
 which all aliens coming into the country should be compelled 
 to enter their names, with the date of their arrival, and the 
 further provision that a certified copy of such entry under 
 the seal of the office, should be filed in a court, either district 
 or circuit, of the United States or some of her territories, at 
 the time when the party makes his declaration of intention to 
 become a citizen, and that both the declaration and entry 
 should be recorded in a federal court. When, three years 
 thereafter, the party should apply for admission to take the 
 oaths, the certified copy of the date of his registration and his 
 previous declaration of his intention to become a citizen, from 
 the office of record, should alone be received as evidence of 
 either fact. It would be a matter of no great difficulty to pre- 
 vent the importation or landing upon our shores of paupers 
 and felons, without touching the real objects and spirit of the 
 naturalization laws as they stand. 
 
 The object of the Know-Nothing secret association is to re- 
 peal the naturalization laws altogether, and to admit none but 
 natives to the elective franchise, and to exclude even natives, 
 if they be Catholics, from every office under government: 
 "Americans and Protestant Americans by birth shall alone 
 rule Americans." The Pharisaic Philadelphia Platform an- 
 nounces, as its third great cardinal principle, " The mainte- 
 nance of the Union as the paramount political good," and by 
 way of corollary from, or exemplification of, the principle, 
 " Obedience to the Constitution of the United States as the 
 supreme law of the land, sacredly obligatory upon all its parts 
 and members ; and steadfast resistance to the spirit of innova- 
 tion upon its principles, however specious the pretexts." This 
 lip-service to the Union and the constitution is exceedingly 
 
442 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 fashionable, and marvellously cheap and easy. The aboli- 
 tionist, when he takes his seat in Congress, swears to observe 
 the Constitution and maintain the Union. The nullifier does 
 the same. Your man from Massachusetts, who is both abo- 
 litionist and nullifier, swears to their doctrine. We must go 
 a little further than these general declarations, even when 
 backed by oaths, before we can know whom to trust with the 
 Union and the Constitution. The new organization avows 
 "steadfast resistance to the spirit of innovation upon the 
 principles of the Constitution, however specious the pretexts." 
 This is their text. One of the principles of the constitu- 
 tion is that "no religious test shall ever be required as a 
 qualification to any oflSce of public trust under the United 
 States." They have sworn, upon the holy evangelists, to ex- 
 clude all men of the Catholic religion, whether citizens by 
 birth or naturalization, from every oflBce of public trust under 
 government. This is their commentary and proof of " stead- 
 fast resistance to innovation upon the principles of the 
 constitution " upon any " pretext, however specious." The 
 constitution declares that Congress shall have power to estab- 
 lish a uniform rule of naturalization, and further, that " the 
 citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges 
 and immunities of citizens in the several States." 
 
 There is abundant evidence, from the highest and most in- 
 disputable sources, that if this party is not able to repeal the 
 laws of naturalization established by the national legislature 
 in pursuance of the constitution, they mean, wherever they 
 have the power, by State laws or constitutions, to repeal the 
 naturalization laws, and set up by State authority different 
 tests of citizenship from those established by Congress, pro- 
 ducing thereby a beautiful uniformity on this subject. The 
 source whence I draw my proof of this latter proposition is 
 no less high and indisputable than the ofBcial eiforts of the 
 Hon. Garrett Davis, of Bourbon, backed with all the powers 
 of argument and eloquence of which that gentleman is so con- 
 spicuous a master. The resolutions which he oifered when a 
 member of the convention, which formed the new constitution 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 443 
 
 of Kentucky, and the speeches which he made in support of 
 them, are now before me. Mr. Davis, in fixing or attempting 
 to fix the rights of citizenship, and the qualifications of voters, 
 under the new constitution, sought to confine them in Ken- 
 tucky, as to persons of foreign birth : 1st. To such as, at the 
 time of the adoption of the amended constitution, should be 
 naturalized citizens of the United States. 2d. To such as, at 
 the time of the adoption of the amended constitution, should 
 have declared their purpose to become citizens of the United 
 States, in conformity to the laws thereof, and who shall have 
 become citizens. 3d. Those who, twenty-one years previously 
 thereto shall have declared their purpose, according to the ex- 
 isting provisions of the laws of the United States, to become 
 citizens thereof, and who then shall be citizens of the United 
 States, etc. The true meaning of the third provision is, per- 
 haps, not perfectly clear. It is difierently interpreted by 
 difierent readers. Some persons consider that it was Mr. 
 Davis' intention, through all time, to confer the right of 
 suffrage upon foreigners born, who had declared their purpose 
 to become citizens of the United States twenty-one years pre- 
 viously to their application to vote, and who should be actually 
 citizens at the time of the election at which such application 
 should be made. Such persons consider the words "previ- 
 ously thereto," to mean, previously to any election which 
 might be held in Kentucky, at any distance of time from the 
 adoption of the amended constitution, while that constitution 
 remained in force. To me it appears that the plain grammati- 
 cal construction, taking all the clauses together, is that the 
 word "thereto" refers to the adoption of the amended consti- 
 tution — no' other point of time is referred to or named in any 
 of the clauses. The first clause begins, "those who at the 
 time of the adoption of this amended constitution," etc. The 
 second clause commences with the same words — and the third 
 proceeds immediately without any other phrase or reference, 
 " Those who, twenty-one years previously thereto, etc." Pre- 
 viously to what? To the adoption of the amended constitution, 
 undoubtedly. Whether Mr. Davis meant to confine the right 
 
444: T. r. MARSHALL. 
 
 of suffrage, in the case of foreigners born, only to those who 
 were naturalized citizens of the United States at the time of 
 the adoption of the amended constitution, and who had been 
 actual residents of the country and declarants of their pur- 
 pose to become citizens twenty-one years previously thereto, 
 or meant that twenty-one years residence and naturalization 
 under the laws of the United States shall at any time confer 
 the right of suffrage, without reference to the date of the 
 amended constitution, is immaterial. In either event, it is 
 the purpose of the resolutions to exclude from oflSce and suf- 
 frage in Kentucky naturalized citizens of the United States, 
 who had every other qualification of a citizen of Kentucky 
 but birth. The Constitution of the United States and the 
 laws of Congress in relation to the important subject of citi- 
 zenship, recognize no distinction between citizens by birth and 
 citizens by adoption. The rules of naturalization must be 
 uniform. The language employed, the word used to express 
 the act of conferring the rights of citizenship upon an alien 
 born, whatever those rights may be, is singular and exceed- 
 ingly impressive. The law is said not to convert him into a 
 denizen or citizen, or to confer any limited or specified rights 
 upon him, but to nalurdlize him. Such is the transcendant 
 power intended to be conferred upon Congress, that the law 
 passed in pursuance of it is supposed to abolish the fact of 
 foreign birth, and to stand in the place of nativity. The new 
 born republican is regenerated by an act of paramount and 
 all sovereign grace. In the language of the theologians, he is 
 born again. Now, these naturalization laws require only five 
 years' residence. Mr. Davis' resolution requires twenty-one, 
 and therefore, in Kentucky, renders null and imperative the 
 law of the United States. 
 
 I admit Mr. D.'s talents, firmness, and purity. I avow ac- 
 cordance with the general views of that gentleman, in relation 
 to social organization and fundamental law as maintained by 
 him in the convention. I can never sufficiently admire or laud 
 the political heroism and self-sacrificing zeal with which he 
 throw himself alone into the wide breach made by the conven- 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION, 445 
 
 tion in what I hold with Mr. D. to be the true principles of 
 constitutional freedom, and opposed himself singly to a torrent 
 which had proved irresistible. 
 
 If there has ever been personal unkindness between us, it 
 was long since healed and obliterated. Still, in my most de- 
 cided and deliberate judgment, Mr. Davis' resolutions con- 
 tained a great radical and mischievous error ; an error which, 
 if carried into the legislation of the States, is fatal to the 
 constitution and the Union upon this point of citizenship. It 
 would prove fatal, too, to Mr. Davis' own darling scheme of 
 repealing, by the national authority, the naturalization laws. 
 If the new party, during the existence of those laws, can es- 
 tablish, by State constitution or law, a different rule of citizen- 
 ship, within a particular State, how shall they say that a 
 State where they are in the minority, may not disregard their 
 repealing act, and establish for itself any rule of naturalization 
 the State may see fit ? The doctrine, in its practical opera- 
 tion, destroys, in my judgment, the fundamental idea of the 
 republic. It annihilates the nationality of the people. It 
 falsifies the first words of the Federal constitution — "We, the 
 people of the United States." It abolishes the provision that 
 "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
 and immunities of citizens in the several States." On the 
 one hand, a citizen of the United States can never become a 
 citizen of Kentucky; and on the other, a citizen of Illinois or 
 Michigan is not recognized as a citizen of the United States. 
 This is nullification up to the handle. It is the resuscitation 
 of the South Carolina doctrine, or theory of the government 
 as laid down in her ordinance of 1832. The Federal com- 
 pact, as they term our national constitution, will not be, under 
 the idea considered an union of the people of the several 
 States in such manner as to make them one, but a confedera- 
 tion of sovereignties, whose citizens are alien to each other, 
 and only connected through their several State governments. 
 To be a citizen of the United States will mean nothing, since 
 each and every State in the Union can deprive such of every 
 right and franchise which marks citizenship, or makes it valu- 
 
446 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 able. If Mr. Davis can declare, by his State constitution, 
 naturalized citizens of the United States for ever incapable of 
 office or of suffrage in Kentucky, because they were not born 
 in the United States, he can declare, with equal right, that a 
 citizen of the United States, born in Ohio or Massachusetts, 
 should never vote at the polls, or be eligible to office in Ken- 
 tucky. He might declare that a citizen of Virginia, Carolinas, 
 or any slave State, upon a residence of two years, might vote 
 in Kentucky, but a citizen of any other State migrating to 
 Kentucky should be disfranchised for ever. The doctrine de- 
 nationalizes us, makes each State sovereign upon this subject 
 within its borders, and makes the citizens of each State aliens 
 to each other. There is no such thing as the people of the 
 United States. 
 
 To refute this idea it would seem only necessary to indicate 
 the consequences which flow inevitably from it. The confu- 
 sions which will follow this effort to disturb the great principle 
 of the constitution, and the laws of the Union made in pursu- 
 ance of it in relation to naturalization, are not confined to 
 their side of the question. If they succeed in repealing those 
 laws, and overthrowing that principle, in pursuit of their favor- 
 ite scheme of nationality, they w^ill gain nothing by it, unless 
 they carry and retain every State in the Union, an event not 
 to be anticipated. Their opponents meet them on Mr. Davis' 
 ground of the right of State interference with the subject. 
 Many distinguished men of the democratic party contend that 
 among, the rights of the States, that to fix the qualifications 
 of electors or voters for the members of the State legislature 
 and all State officers, is unbounded and absolutely unqualified 
 by any condition or exception. They say that the Constitu- 
 tion of the United States recognizes the right fully in the 
 second section of the first article, where it fixes the qualifica- 
 tions of electors or voters for members of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives in Congress. It is in these words : the electors 
 in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors 
 of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature." As 
 the Federal constitution no where undertakes to fix or define 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 447 
 
 the qualifications of voters for any officers in the State gov- 
 ernment, the argument is, that the whole matter is left to the 
 unrestrained discretion of the State laws. If this be so, it is 
 evident that a State, or any number of States, may have any 
 number of citizens, who are themselves not citizens of the 
 United States, not covered by the flag, or entitled to the pro- 
 tection of the United States government either in peace or 
 war, not entitled to the rights or immunities of citizens in any 
 other State, foreigners and aliens, according to the law of na/- 
 tions, and the constitution and laws of the United States, 
 and if taken in arms in the service of the United States 
 against the prince or government in whose allegiance they 
 were born, liable to be hanged for treason, yet authorized, by 
 virtue of State laws, to vote for members of Congress and 
 President of the United States ; ofiicers whose powers extend 
 far beyond the limits of any particular State ; powers which 
 bind for good or for evil the whole people of the United 
 States, and challenge the obedience of the entire republic. 
 
 It matters not, whether the argument upon which this right 
 is claimed by its advocates be well or ill founded. Should 
 the naturalization laws be repealed, this right will be practi- 
 cally exercised in many States. The new States, the territo- 
 ries of the United States not yet organized into States, will 
 be crowded with men of foreign birth ; the repeal of the nata- 
 ralization laws, will disfranchise almost the entire inhabitants, 
 at least a large majority in some sections of the United States. 
 All such will frame their own rules of naturalization, and will 
 fix their own qualifications for electors. The scheme will rend 
 the constitution to shreds and tatters^ The purpose of the 
 organization to revolutionize the domestic policy of the United 
 States upon this subject is ridiculous, unless they intend to 
 make it uniform. Have they thought of the means by which 
 they are to enforce this system? They might find it easy 
 enough to crush a few insurrectionary ebullitions of Irish 
 turnpikers, but when they come to grapple with powerful and 
 organized committees, States asserting their sovereign powers 
 
 Under the constitution, Know-Nothing mobs will not answer 
 29 
 
448 T. r. MAKSHALL. 
 
 the purpose. They must put on armor of another sort and 
 temper. They feel the difficulty of their situation, and con- 
 tend stoutly that the laws of naturalization must be uniform. 
 That if they repeal them, they must be repealed every where. 
 They aver that a State can not naturalize a foreigner, but in 
 the same breath maintain that a State can disfranchise or un- 
 naturalize a citizen. They are inconsistent. The democrat 
 argues that his position is in favor of liberty, and extends a 
 right which the national laws are bound by the constitution, 
 but refuse to provide for, but that the new party, by their 
 doctrine of State interference, deprives a citizen of a franchise 
 actually conferred by the national authority. There seems to 
 be at least more of liberality, more of the generous spirit of 
 American freedom in the democratic position. I disagree 
 entirely, and protest most solemnly against either doctrine. 
 DiiFering in object, they are the same in principle. Nomina- 
 ted by no convention, representing no particular body of men, 
 no one has the right to complain of me. My own nominee, 
 and representing my own ideas, I am free to follow where ever 
 my own free reasoning may lead. Sam, if he obtain a ma- 
 jority in both houses of Congress, and make a President who 
 will sign the bill, has, in my judgment, a legal right under 
 the constitution to pass an act repealing all the naturalization 
 laws-^— and thereafter no one of foreign birth, not naturalized at 
 the time of the passage of the act, can become an American 
 .citizen, and none but American citizens can constitutionally 
 have a voice in selecting an American President, or an Ameri- 
 can Congress. A State can not pass an act of naturalization. 
 
 Perhaps a comparison of the articles of confederation upon 
 this subject with the provisions of the federal constitution, 
 and a reference to the cotemporaneous exposition of the 
 latter, given by the ablest men of that day or of any day, 
 may elucidate this matter, and place it beyond cavil or dis- 
 pute. The fourth of the articles of confederation provides as 
 follows : 
 
 The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and 
 intercourse among the people of the different States in this 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 449 
 
 Union, the free, inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, 
 vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled 
 to all privileges and immunities of free citizens, in the several 
 states, and the people of each state shall have free ingress and 
 egress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all 
 the privileges of trade and commerce, etc." The federal con- 
 stitution, as we have already seen, gives to Congress " the 
 power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization through- 
 out the United States," and declares further that " the 
 citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and 
 immunities of citizens in the several states." In commenting 
 upon this power of " naturalization " in No. 42 of the Feder- 
 alist, in the close of that paper, Mr. Madison uses the follow- 
 ing language. 
 
 " The dissimilarity in the rules of naturalization has long 
 been remarked as a fault in our system, and as laying a foun- 
 dation for intricate and delicate questions." Mr. Madison 
 after quoting the article above, proceeds : 
 
 "There is a confusion of language here which is remarka- 
 able. Why the terms free inhabitants are used in one part of 
 the article, free citizens in another, and people in another, or 
 what was meant by superadding to ' all privileges and immu- 
 nities of free citizens ' the words ' all the privileges of trade 
 and commerce,' can not easily be determined. It seems to 
 be a construction scarcely avoidable however, that those who 
 come under the denomination of free inhabitants of a state 
 although not citizens of such state, are entitled in every other 
 state to all the privileges of free citizens of the latter; that 
 is, to greater privileges than they may be entitled to in their 
 own states, so that it may be in the power of a particular 
 state, or rather every state is laid under a necessity not only 
 to confer the rights of citizenship in other states upon any 
 whom it may admit to such rights within itself, but upon any 
 whom it may allow to become inhabitants within its jurisdic- 
 tion. But were an exposition of the term ^inhabitants' tQ 
 be admitted which would confine the stipulated privileges to 
 citizens alone, the difficulty is diminished only, not removed. 
 
450 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 The very improper power ■would still be retained by each 
 state, of naturalizing aliens in every other state. In one 
 state, residence for a short term, confers all the rights of citi- 
 zenship; in another, qualifications of greater importance are 
 required. An alien therefore legally incapacitated for certain 
 rights in the latter, may, by previous residence, only in the 
 former, elude his incapacity; and thus the law of one state 
 be preposterously rendered paramount to the law of another, 
 within the jurisdiction of the other. We owe it to mere casu- 
 alty, that very serious embarrassments on this subject have 
 been hitherto escaped. By the laws of several states, certain 
 descriptions of aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoicious, 
 were laid under interdicts inconsistent, not only with the 
 rights of citizenship, but with the privileges of residence. 
 What would have been the consequence, if such persons, by 
 residence or otherwise, had acquired the character of citizens 
 under the laws of another state, and then asserted their right 
 as Such, both to residence and citizenship, within the state 
 proscribing them? Whatever the legal consequences might 
 have been, other consequences would probably have resulted of 
 too serious a nature not to be provided against. The new con- 
 stitution has, accordingly, with great propriety, made provision 
 against them, and all others proceeding from the defect of the 
 confederation on this head, by authorizing the general govern- 
 ment to establish a uniform rule of "naturalization through- 
 out the United States." Nothing can be clearer than this. 
 Before the adoption of the present constitution of the United 
 States, each state had the right under the first articles of 
 confederation to pass their own naturalization laws, which, of 
 course were variant in the different states — this, coupled with 
 the provision that the inhabitants or citizens of each state had 
 the right of citizens in other states, produced the confusion 
 so admirably delineated by Madison. To remedy which the 
 Federal constitution gave exclusive power over the subject to 
 the e;eneral government. The doctrine Mr. M. was combating 
 would bring back all the confusion the constitution designed 
 to obviate. If Illinois or Michigan, for instance, should con- 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 451 
 
 fer upon a free inhabitant, an alien born, and not naturalized 
 by the laws of the United States, the right of citizenship in 
 Illinois, if such an one should remove to Kentucky, what would 
 become of the provision " That the citizens of each state 
 shall be entitled to all privileges?" etc. There is a different 
 rule in Kentucky. An alien born can have no right of citi- 
 zenship here. The constitution would be broken up. 
 
 But in the thirty-second number of the Federalist, Alexander 
 Hamilton wrote thus : " An entire consolidation of the states 
 into one complete national sovereignty, would^ imply an entire 
 subordination of th« parts ; and whatever power might remain 
 in them would be altogether dependent on the general will. 
 But as the plan of the convention aims only at a partial union 
 or consolidation, the state governments will clearly retain all 
 the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which 
 are not by that act (the Federal constitution) exclusively dele- 
 gated to the Union. Thi-s .exclusive delegation, or rather this 
 alienation of sovereignty, will only exist in three cases : 1st. 
 Where the constitution, in express terms, grants an exclusive 
 authority to the Union. 2d. Where it grants, in one instance, 
 an authority to the Union, and, in another, prohibits the states 
 from exercising the like authority. 3d. Where it grants an 
 authority to the Union, to which a similar authority in the 
 states would be absolutely and totally contradictory and re- 
 pugnant." After giving examples of the two first cases put, 
 of exclusive authority granted to the Union, Mr. Hamilton 
 proceeds : " The third will be found in that clause which de- 
 clares that Congress shall have power to establish a uniform 
 rule of naturalization throughout the United States. This 
 must certainly be exclusive," he adds, "because, if each state 
 had power to prescribe a distinct rule, there could be no uni- 
 form rule." In the eightieth number of the Federalist, it is 
 observed : " It may be esteemed the basis of the Union, that 
 the citizens of each state shall be entitled to all the privileges 
 and immunities of the several states." From the reason of 
 the thing, and from these highest of all authorities, it is 
 evident that this power is exclusively vested in the Union, and 
 
452 T. p. MAESHALL. 
 
 that the rule of naturalization must be uniform throughout all 
 the states, or the Union is broken up at the basis. Nor does 
 this reasoning, conclusive as it is, at all conflict with the right 
 of a state to fix the qualifications of electors or voters within 
 its limits. The qualification, when ascertained, must apply 
 equally to all citizens of the United States. No citizen of the 
 United States, (and in this respect, nor indeed in any respect, 
 is there any distinction between the native and the natu- 
 ralized,) having the legal qualifications, can be proscribed on 
 account of the place of his birth. Nor, on the other hand, 
 can any power short of the Union, Americanize an alien. In 
 this way, and in this way alone, can the constitution be ob- 
 served, and a uniform rule be established or preserved. In 
 the quotation made from Mr. Madison, the power is shown to 
 have been a necessary one. Unless it had been exerted, the 
 existing confusions could not have been remedied. It is just 
 as necessary now. If it be abandoned— if the national laws 
 be repealed — the state governments will, from the necessities 
 of their situation, and the nature of their population, be com- 
 pelled to take it up. When the general government abdicates, 
 or fails to exercise necessary powers, usurpation upon the 
 part of the states is the inevitable, the absolutely necessary 
 consequence. 
 
 The Federal Constitution designed evidently that none but 
 American citizens should rule America. Its purpose was 
 equally clear not to confine the rights of citizenship to those 
 born in the United States. The high power of converting an 
 alien into a citizen, of Americanizing a stranger by birth, was 
 conferred exclusively upon the general government. An act 
 nationalizing an individual, investing him with rights which 
 the Constitution compels, in express terms, every state to re- 
 spect, must needs be performed by the national government. 
 No state could bind all the others by any separate act of its 
 own. I have shown sufficiently the confusion which would in- 
 evitably follow — the unavoidable breaches which would be 
 made in other parts of the constitution, if the several states 
 should set up separate and different rules of naturalization. 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 453 
 
 The effort of Illinois or Michigan to admit persons, alien bj 
 the laws of the United States, to the rights of citizenship, and 
 that made by Mr. Davis in Kentucky, to exclude American 
 citizens in Kentucky from franchises which they must needa 
 carry with them' every where, to obliterate, by a state act,, the 
 stamp of nationality impressed upon them by the laws of the 
 Union, are kindred errors, alike at war with the language of 
 the constitution, the construction given to it by its wisest in- 
 terpreters, the whole genius of our system, and the true idea 
 of American nationality. 
 
 The right of expatriation — the right of a human being tO' 
 throw off the involuntary and oppressive obligations imposed 
 by the accident of birth within a particular jurisdiction,, to 
 shift his residence from one part of the globe to another, and 
 by the spontaneous act of a full grown man to choose his 
 country, is one of those American ideas which our fathers 
 meant to establish and make practical by the institutions 
 which they founded. The right to shift your allegiance is de- 
 nied by the common law of England. Nemo potest exuere 
 patriam — no one can throw off his country — is a maxim of 
 that jurisprudence. A subject of the crown is one born within 
 the king's legiance. Once a subject, always a subject, is the 
 principle of the British law. The doctrine of the American 
 constitution is different. Descended from men, who them- 
 selves had fled from oppression, the men of '76 completed the 
 act of expatriation, by a declaration of independence and a 
 forcible revolution. They framed a government upon which 
 they conferred the power to convert aliens born into citizens, 
 and tO' impose upon them exclusive and absolute allegiance, 
 with the correlative duty of protection upon the part of the 
 government, the common law to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 In possession of a vast extent of fertile and unsettled land, 
 the American fathers did not intend to close their door against 
 further immigration. In the relative circumstances of the old 
 and the new world, as to population and territory, they had 
 sense enough to know that nature would press with irresistible 
 force against any bar that artificial policy might 'attempt to 
 
454 T. F. MARSHALL. 
 
 raise. They sought not, therefore, to separate themselves 
 from the human race — to surround themselves with an ocean 
 of fire^ — to throw an impassable gulf between a republic so 
 situated and the enslaved and suffering population of other 
 countries. Considering such a policy to be as impossible in 
 execution as it was merciless in design, they flung wide their 
 gates. The influx of population from abroad was a fact im- 
 possible to prevent. How to deal with it was a practical 
 question which they had to settle in their fundamental policy 
 — and they did settle it by the fearless application of those 
 principles which, in their declaration, they had proclaimed to 
 be the birthright of mankind. 
 
 They believed with a deep and living faith in those princi- 
 jples. They had trusted their cause to them, they had founded 
 their institutions upon them. 
 
 That political government among men derives its just powers 
 from the consent of the governed was one of their axioms. 
 They did not condescend to prove it by logic — they announced 
 it as a truth self-evident to human reason, an essential ele-. 
 ment of human right, an indisputable postulate of freedom. 
 From this they deduced their- principle of representation in its 
 largest sense. 
 
 The power claimed by the British parliament to tax the 
 colonies w"as, as every one knows, the question which brought 
 on the war of the revolution. The ground upon which the 
 colonies denied the power was, that they were not represented 
 in that parliament. They asserted the principle retrospect- 
 ively, and contended that the colonies had always been inde- 
 pendent of the British legislature, and such was the historical 
 fact. In its grand extension, it embraces and distinctly recog- 
 nizes the eternal ti-uth, the basis of all liberty, that no legis- 
 lation can justly bind, unless the subject of it consent to the 
 law by himself or his representative. The principle is cardi- 
 nal ; it is absolutely inseparable from the American idea of 
 .civil liberty. Tear it away, and the idea and the fact — the 
 principle and the liberty are gone. 
 
 From a profound policy, then, as well as an enlarged be- 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 455 
 
 nevolence, (things which the truly wise have ever held to be 
 identical,) they thought it safer, as well as more humane, to 
 impart to the stranger all the blessings of freedom which 
 they themselves enjoyed. An alien by birth, they determined 
 to make him a citizen by adoption, and to bind him to the coun- 
 try of his choice by the strong cords of gratitude and affection, 
 as well as interest. They did not think it either wise or safe 
 to have a large number of foreigners always foreigners, in the 
 bosom of a republic, always in full view of the most perfect 
 civil liberty, yet deprived of its enjoyment; for liberty is an 
 enjoyment as well as a right. To them it would be no repub- 
 lic. Excluded from office and from honor, with no voice in 
 the councils, no power to hold real estate, no representation 
 in the legislature of such rights as might remain to them, in 
 what do persons thus situated differ from the subjects of an 
 absolute despotism? They do differ in one, and that a most 
 material circumstance. 
 
 Under the absolute government of a single person, whose 
 will is the sole law, all below vhim are at least equal. It is 
 some comfort to a man, if he be a slave, at least to feel and 
 know that it is the common lot. The subjects of a single 
 master are peers in servitude. Of all the forms of oppression, 
 the most unbearable to human thought, yet the most irrespon- 
 sible, insolent and irresistible, is the tyranny of an exclusively 
 privileged class. Reason and experience, fact and theory, 
 speculation and practice, agree in this, that the tyranny of 
 caste over caste is the most corrupting to those above, the 
 most crushing and intolerable to the heart and soul of those 
 below, of any of the corrupting and crushing forms of tyranny 
 heretofore known among men. 
 
 Our ancestors, therefore, did not mean to divide American 
 society into horizontal strata, by a boundary line of religion 
 and of blood, with those who had happened to be born in 
 another part of the earth, and those of the Catholic religion, 
 no matter where born, (these being of a faith so accursed that 
 not icven American birth and education could purify the taint,) 
 
456 
 
 T. F. MAESHALL. 
 
 safely stowed away below, while the favorites of heaven, the 
 Protestants elect, securely seated on top, booted, spurred and 
 mounted on the backs of the degraded class, might rule and 
 ride a dominant and regnant party, armed with the exclusive 
 rights of office and of suflfrage — in other words, with power 
 absolute and irresistible, save by arms. 
 
 They believed that a republic, founded upon the most per- 
 fect equality of rights among those subjected to its laws and 
 government, was not only the most just and free, the most 
 productive of happiness and improvement,- the best calculated 
 to develop the faculties, intellectual and moral, the most favor- 
 able to science and to virtue, but also that it was the most 
 permanent and secure, whether from' external force or from 
 internal disorder. They b"felieved in liberty sincerely, devoutly, 
 without hypocrisy or doubt, as the fountain of all good things, 
 as that which gives to the individual dignity and courage, to 
 the state strength and grandeur, safety and permanence. 
 Without it, in their judgment, there could be no. patriotism, 
 no love of country. 
 
 A state which reposes in the honest love of its citizens, a 
 love founded in the private interest which each individual has 
 in its preservation, is safer without revenue or arms, sur- 
 rounded by a rampart of hearts, than an oppressive, unjust 
 and unequal government, with all the guards and garrisons, 
 the bayonets and fortresses which money, wrung by force 
 from an unwilling and enslaved people, can build or buy. 
 
 Make the foreigner a citizen, and he enters upon the prac- 
 tical enjoyment of all the rights of other men. He is incor- 
 porated with the state, and feels himself a part of it. He 
 loves it as his country in peace, he defends it with honor in 
 war. Keep him a foreigner, and he hates you, as all those 
 of a degraded caste loathe what is above them. He is a do- 
 mestic enemy, ripe for revolution. If your enemy be his 
 former master, and he fights for you in war, he fights with a 
 halter round his neck. Captivity dooms him to the death of 
 a felon. Your flag is not his flag, it does not cover him. In 
 
KNOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 457 
 
 a land of liberty, he is a slave ; in the home of his choice, he 
 is a stranger; in peace, he has no civil rights; in war, no 
 hopes of honor. ; 
 
 Without representation, our ancestors believed that there 
 could be no civil liberty without an entire, total and perma- 
 nent separation of the ecclesiastical state from the political, 
 of the church from the civil government, of religion from the 
 temporal power of the priest, no matter of what faith, and his 
 dogmas, from the laws and the magistracy, there could be no 
 religious liberty. 
 
 Our ancestors were not heathen or infidels. Devoted and 
 Christian men, they believed that in founding a state without 
 a religion, and in establishing perfect toleration, they were in 
 fact establishing Christianity, and providing for the purity of 
 the church and the extension of the gospel, according to its 
 own free genius and the precepts of its founder. "My kingdom 
 is not of this world," He said; and again, when speaking of 
 the Jewish laws against adultery, he said, "Whoso looketh upon 
 a woman to lust after her hath already committed adultery in 
 his heart." It is to the heart and will that Christianity ad- 
 dresses itself, and seeks to reform human nature and purify 
 humafa action by cleansing it at the fountain. When the 
 church, in violation of the commands of its master, sought " to 
 lift its mitered front " among the princes of the earth, and be- 
 coming a political establishment, aimed to extend and enforce 
 the faith by compulsory regulation, the Almighty averted his 
 face and his support far from it. 
 
 Never yet has Christianity leaned upon the arm of human 
 government and force for support, that it has not been tainted 
 and defiled by the alliance. Engaged in the struggle for 
 wealth and power, embroiled in the passions and turmoil of 
 earthly strife and mundane politics, the church abdicating her 
 office, abandons her trust, and finally quits the conflict, with 
 her holy vestments stained and polluted, her divine lineaments 
 erased, and her just and appropriate influence overthrown. 
 
 The political weakness of the church constitutes its moral 
 strength and grandeur. 
 
458 
 
 T. F. MARSHALL, 
 
 Seeking no participation in the temporal power, coveting 
 not the treasures of this world, she comes with, a more com- 
 manding voice to soothe the passions in which she does not 
 share, to arbitrate ih the strifes to which she is no party. 
 
 When our constitutions bar the ministers of the gospel from 
 political power, they do not seek so much to preserve the 
 liberty of the state, as the proper dignity and purity of the 
 church. 
 
 I perceive, gentlemen, that I am in the midst of the order 
 of " Know-Nothings." You call yourselves the American 
 Party." You have built a platform which you are pleased 
 to call national. There is nothing national in it, nothing 
 peculiar, nothing which distinguishes you from other parties or 
 other persons, but the two principles of religious persecution, 
 and the denial of the right of expatriation. These ideas are 
 revolutionary and anti-American. You seek the overthrow of 
 toleration, naturalization, and political equality among citizens, 
 to tear away the threads which run like a fine tissue of gold 
 through the whole web of our system, strings which are twist- 
 ed with the very heart and life of our republic. 
 
 You say that you do not mean to interfere with the rights 
 of conscience or any man's religious liberty, yet you make out 
 a case against the Catholic which declares him necessarily an 
 enemy , of the state, the sworn subject of a foreign prince, a 
 domestic traitor whose oath of allegiance to the state is a per- 
 jury, whose real master is the enemy of all human freedom, 
 who is ilooding this country with whole armies of priests and 
 Jesuits, who wait but his orders and the coming hour of 
 strength to overthrow the republic. You do not mean to 
 persecute the Catholic, yet you charge him with designs and 
 crimes against the state, springing necessarily from the nature 
 of his religion, which would justify any extremity of violence, 
 which would render his expulsion or extermination a wise, 
 humane and necessary policy. There has been a time when the 
 cry of popery and "popish plots" would lash the Anglo-Saxon 
 mind to murder and to madness. Those days are long gone 
 by even in England. The British government has expunged 
 
KJfOW-NOTHING ORGANIZATION. 459 
 
 in the nineteenth century, her persecuting statutes. She has 
 passed, her Oathalic emancipation act. The United States will 
 not, rest assured she will not, clothe her young and buoyant 
 limbs with the cast-off vestments of which even monarchy has 
 grown ashamed. Every well-informed man knows that the 
 tie between the Catholic laity or priesthood, and the Pope as 
 spiritual head of the church, is not political. Every well in- 
 formed man knows, that outside of the papal states in Italy, 
 no Catholic owes any allegiance to the Pope as a temporal 
 prince or potentate. He is at this time held on his throne 
 by a foreign hand. He is protected against his own subjects 
 by 8000 French bayonets. 
 
 No body in America is afraid of the Pope. 
 
 You' say that the Catholics and the citizens of foreign birth 
 are necessarily abolitionists. The history of parties will not 
 bear out the assertion. Is the legislature of Massachusetts 
 composed of men of foreign birth? Are the sixty-three 
 preachers, members of that assembly, Catholic priests ? Na- 
 tives and Protestants every dog of them. Yet they have 
 nullified the fugitive slave law. They are Know-Nothihgs 
 also. They wish to proscribe the Catholic and the foreigner. 
 With these men, the abolition of slavery is "the great idea" 
 of the nineteenth century. They believe that to be the insti- 
 tution, which chiefly endangers "our nationality, our Protes- 
 tant civilization, our Federal Union." How happens it that 
 they should proscribe the Catholic and the naturalized citizen, 
 if that class are with them in their great and paramount ob- 
 ject? The fact is otherwise, and the history of parties proves 
 it to be otherwise. 
 
 The whig party, under that name, exists no longer. The 
 world, however, will see, rest assured they will, in "young 
 Sam" nothing but a renewal of the old struggle for power, 
 under a new name, and with new and dangerous principles. 
 The true crime of the Catholics and the naturalized citizens 
 is not that they seek to bring over to this country either the 
 forms or the substance of despotism, either civil or religious. 
 It is that they are too democratic. It is that they have de^ 
 
460 T. F. MARSHALIi. 
 
 feated the whigs in their reiterated efforts to make a Presi- 
 dent and to control the government. ' Let the truth be told 
 though the sky should fall. That party threw overboard such 
 men as Webster and Fillmore. It was said that General 
 Scott inclined to the Catholic religion. It was said that he 
 had educated his daughters in a convent, that he had made an 
 American army in Mexico kneel before a procession of priests, 
 at the elevation of the host. He was nominated by a whig 
 convention. The whig papers hurled their anathemas at 
 General Pierce and New Hampshire, because that State had 
 proscribed Catholics by law. General Scott was beaten. The 
 overthrow was terrible. Curse the Catholics, they would not 
 vote for a quasi Catholic candidate, when you offered him, and 
 henceforth they should not be allowed to vote at all. It is 
 the democratic party, not the Pope, which you hate and 
 dread. The Constitution and the laws of the republic, here- 
 tofore deemed fundamental, do not work to please a defeated 
 party, and they, following the beaten path of baffled factions, 
 seek to change them. 
 
 Your new organization, gentlemen, seems to be strong, and 
 to contain many elements of popular strength. Its novelty, 
 the charm of secrecy, so well calculated to attract young and 
 thoughtless men ; the name of " American party," the cry of 
 " Americans shall rule America," so gratifying to native 
 pride, the promise of a dominant caste, so alluring to the ty- 
 rannic love of domini9n, which, say what we will, forms at 
 last an essential element of human nature; the invitation to 
 all the Protestant sects, to unite in a crusade against a church, 
 feeble and defenseless here, and odious, justly odious, to the 
 Protestant — all these things seem ominous of success. The 
 cry of abolitionism, too, against the wretched foreigner invited 
 here by the generosity of our exsisting laws, is a word of 
 fire in the South. The party sings a different tune in the 
 North. There it is abolitionist, but still denounces the Catho- 
 lic and the foreigner. They remember Polk, they remember 
 that accursed acquisition of all the slave territory which lies 
 south of the compromise line of 36° 30', the annexation of 
 
KNOW-NOTHING OEGANIZATION. 461 
 
 Texas, for which although rent from a Catholic power, the 
 accursed papist and the foreigner still voted. They remem- 
 ber the Mexican war, in which, though waged against the 
 same Catholic power from which Texas had been ravished, 
 these accursed Catholics, the temporal subjects of the Pope, 
 against their allegiance and the will and the interest of their 
 real master, rushed by thousands to aid a Protestant Repuhlio 
 in conquering and ravaging a thoroughly Catholic State. The 
 party North remembers the protective tariff so important to 
 their gains, so dear to their avarice, and that these same 
 Catholics and foreigners, aided to their utmost, the hateful 
 slave states and the democrats to put it down. They adapt 
 their music skillfully to the different tastes of their various 
 audiences, but it is still the dirge to Catholics and foreigners. 
 Although the worst and most powerful passions of the human 
 mind are appealed to with tremendous emphasis, mark my 
 words, it will not at all do. Many of their sworn soldiers 
 will fall off from them. They may muster from the Protes- 
 tant churches a small, a very small corps of ignorant fanatics, 
 really frightened with the ghost of the Papacy, and a few 
 bloody bigots anxious for the game of persecution, but the 
 enlightened Christian clergy, understanding well the history 
 of the church, and deeply imbued with the spirit of their 
 master, will scorn the aid of the temporal power, and refuse 
 to lean upon the secular arm for support to religion. The 
 Bible and liberty, a free press and a free pulpit, are all they 
 ask for the diffusion of the gospel. If this organization suc- 
 ceed, however, which may Heaven avert, they will convert 
 the Catholic, native as well as foreigner, into a deadly and 
 dangerous enemy of the republic, planted in the very bowels 
 of the state. I mean not to threaten; God forbid; but men 
 have been known to fight long and hard, and against desper- 
 ate odds for their religion and their franchises. It is in vain 
 for them to say that they mean not to disturb the vested 
 rights conferred by naturalization, or to interfere forcibly with 
 the Catholic mode of worship or their dogmas. The Catholics 
 and the present naturalized foreigners know very well that 
 
462 T. r. MAESHALL. 
 
 it is hatre(J, deadly hatred of them, which has caused the new 
 political organization. They see a political platform, in which 
 there is no politics. War, commerce, negotiation, every thing 
 that has been heretofore considered as appertaining to policy, 
 either foreign or domestic, pretermitted. Hatred , to them 
 seems the only principle of the new parly. Men, I say, have 
 been known to fight for their religion and their franchises. 
 John Huss was an obscure professor in a German University. 
 The Emperor Sigismund when he burnt him at Constance, 
 little dreamed that from the ashes of the friendless martyr 
 there would rise the flaflies of a war in Bohemia which would 
 shake the Austrian power and desolate Germany through long 
 years of suffering and of blood. If the persecuting temper 
 of the sixteenth century is to be renewed here, if American 
 Protestantism so far forgets its genius and its mission, as to 
 aid in rekindling the religious wars of that terrible period in 
 quest of vengeance for the gone centuries of wrong, religion 
 will suffer most. True Christianity will vail her face and seek 
 the shade, till better times. Men will be divided between a 
 sullen and sordid fanaticism on the one side, and a scoffing infi- 
 delity on the other. Our national characteristics will be lost. 
 American civilization will' have changed its character. Our 
 Federal Union will have sacrificed its distinctive traits, and 
 we shall have exhibited a failure in the principles with which 
 our government commenced its career, at which hell itself 
 might exult in triumph. 
 
 THE END. 
 
APPLEGATE & COMPANY, 
 
 iflolisdkrs, 
 
 PUBLISHERS, 
 
 titlJracrs, 
 
 BLME BOOK 
 
 No. 43 MAIN STREET, CINCINNATI. 
 
 ' A good book is the best friend; the same to-day and forever," 
 
 Applegate & Co., in addition to a large and varied assortment of School, Clas- 
 sical, Theological, and Miscellaneous Boohs, which they have constantly on hand, 
 publish a series of valuable Standard Works, suitable for the faii-ily circle, as well as 
 public libraries. 
 
 At this time, when the press teems so abundantly with ephemeral literature, 
 the thinking mind experiences a need of more substantial aliment; of something 
 which shall at the same time furnish not only enjoyment for the present, but for after 
 thought ; something on which the mind will delight to ponder in its communings 
 with itself; something, from the perusal of which one can arise a wiser, if not a bet- 
 ter man ; and among their publications, they flatter themselves such books will be 
 found. It is their aim to select such works, the intrinsic worth of which will cause 
 them to be sought after by enlightened and discriminating minds, and as worthy of 
 gracing the shelves of their libraries. 
 
 Among their publications may be found the following, to which they would res- 
 pectfully invite attention. To these it is their intention to add the best works of the 
 Standard Historical and other authors, and they trust that their selections will be 
 such aa to entitle them to a liberal share of the patronage of the boot-buying publi«^. 
 
APPLEOATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 DR. ADAM CLARKE'S COMPLETE COMMENTARY ON THE OLD AND 
 
 NEW TESTAMENTS 
 
 With a portrait of the author, engraved expressly for this edition, accompanied 
 with Maps, &c. Sheep, spring back, marble edge. The Commentary of Dr. Clarke 
 is most deservedly popular, being not only a truly scientific and elaborately learned 
 work, but it is also well adapted to family reading. Liberal in his views?, benevolent 
 in his character. Christian in his deportment, and deeply learned in Scripture lore, 
 and all the science of the ancients as well as moderns, Dr. Clarke produced a work 
 every way adapted to the wants of Bible students, preachers, and families. This 
 work, although the largest published west of the mountains, is yet afforded at a price 
 within the reach of all. 
 
 From the Nashville and LouisBille Cliristian Advocate. 
 It would be difficult to find any contribution to Sacred Literature that has attained 
 to a higher rank than the Commentaries of Dr. Adam Clarke. Whether regarded as 
 a prodigy of human learning, or as a monument of what perseverance and industry, 
 within the compass of a single lifctijne, can accomplish, it will long continue to chal- 
 lenge the admiration of men as a work of unrivalled merit. It is a treasury of 
 knowledge, in the accumulation of which, the author seems to have had no purpose 
 in view but the apprehension of truth; not to sustain a particular creed, ^but the 
 apprehension of truth for truth's own sake, restrained in the noble pursuits of no 
 party tenets by no ardor for favorite dogmas. It is difficult to conceive of a complete 
 library without this valuable work, and yet alone of itself, it affords to its possessor 
 no mean variety of entertairiment. Besides forming a moderate, but clear elucidation 
 of the true meaning of the Sacred Word, it abounds with illustrations in science, the 
 literature of all ages, and the history of all times and all countries ; and as a lexicon 
 for the exposition of abstruse phrases, of difficult terms, and the true genealogy of 
 words of doubtful import, it immeasurably surpasses all similar works of the age. 
 
 " Of the merits of this work we need not speak, as its fame is as wide as the world 
 of language in which it is written, and as imperishable as the name of its author ; 
 but of this edition we may say a word : It consists of four super-royal octavo vol- 
 umes, two of the Old, and two of the New Testament. The type is clear, printed 
 upon a beautiful white paper, of superior texture, bound in a strong and substantial 
 manner, with marbled edges. The first volume of the Old Testament contains a 
 superior steel engraving of the author. The last volume contains the usual copious 
 alphabetical index, while the entire work is embellished with the usual number of 
 tables and niaps. Upon the whole, this is an excellent and cheap edition of this 
 great work of this great man." 
 
 DR. ADAM CLARKE'S COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT. 
 
 2 vols, super-royal 8vo. Sheep, spring back, marble edge. 
 
 The increasing demand for Dr. Clarke's Commentary on the New Testament, has 
 induced us to issue an edition on superior paper, large clear type, handsomely and 
 substantially bound, containing 1978 pages, with a portrait of the author. 
 
 Of all " Defenders of the Faith," Dr. Adam Clarke is one of the most forcible in 
 ,his arguments, clear in his elucidations, and pungent in his exhortations, as well as 
 thoroughly accurate in scientific and historical researches, that have written on the 
 Bacred Record.". 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF THOMAS DICK, LL. D. 
 
 11 vols, in 2, containing An Essay on the Improvement of Society ; The Philoso- 
 phy of a Future State; The Philosophy of Keligion; The Mental Illumination and 
 Moral Improvement of Mankind j An Essay on the Sin and Evils of Covetousness ; 
 The Christian Philosopher, or Science and Religion; Celestial Scenery, illustrated; 
 Siderial Heavens, Planets, &c. ; The Practical Astronomer ; The Solar System, its 
 Wonders; The Atmosphere and Atmospherical Phenomena, &c. Illustrated with 
 numerous engravings and a portrait. 2 vols, royal 8vo. Sheep, spring back and 
 marble edge. 
 
 This edition is 'printed from entirely new plates, containing the recent revisions of 
 the author, and is the only complete edition published in the United States. 
 
 The works of Dr. Dick are so well known and appreciated, (being such as should 
 be in the possession of every family and made the daily study of its members, old 
 and young,) that the attempt to praise them would be like gilding fine gold. 
 
 It has been the endeavor of the publishers to get up this edition in a style worthy 
 of their merit ; and they flatter themselves that they have succeeded in so doing, as 
 to paper, typography, and binding of the work, neither of which can be surpassed at 
 the East or West. 
 
 From tlie Presbyterian Reoiew, Edinburg. 
 
 Dick's Works.— ^Those who read at all, know both the name of Dr. Dick and 
 the work itself, now reprinted. It has long found acceptance with the public. 
 
 From the Wesleyan Associated Magazine, London. 
 We hail this remarkably cheap and greatly improved edition of Dr. Dick's 
 admirable and highly popular Works. It is a real love to the millions to be able to 
 purchase such an excellent work for so inconsiderable a cost. We earnestly recom- 
 mend this work to all our readers, and especially to all who desire to store their 
 minds with general information. 
 
 From the Presbyterian of the West. 
 Eleven different works are embraced in these volumes, making it an edition full 
 and complete. The range of subjects embraced in these several essays and scientific 
 treatises, is varied, are all highly important and of practical utility to mankind gen- 
 erally. These characteristics of Dr. Dick's writings, while they render them per- 
 manently valuable, insure for them also a wide circulation among all classes of 
 readers. 
 
 From the Cincinnati Gazette. 
 The best recommendation which can be given of Dr. Dick's Works, is the great 
 popularity they have enjoyed, and the numerous editions of them, collected and 
 separate, which have been published in England and America. Messrs. Applegate & 
 Co. are deserving of much praise for the tasteful and handsome style in which they 
 have issued the work, and at such a price as to be within the reach of all. 
 
 From the Central Watchman. 
 Dr. Dick's works have filled a place occupied by no others, and have presented the 
 great facts of nature and the scientific movements and discoveries of the present ago, 
 in a manner at onee both pleasing and instructive. They should have a place in 
 every family library, and be read by all. 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 THE SPECTATOR. 
 
 Witli Biographical Notices 6f its Contributors. 1 vol., royal 8vo., 750 pages, 
 with a portrait of Addison. Sheep, spring back, marble edge. 
 
 There ia no work in the English language that has been more generally read, ap- 
 proved, and appreciated than The Spectator. It is a work that can be perused by 
 persons of all classes and conditions of society with equal pleasure and profit. Of all 
 the writings of Addison, the Spectator is the most suited to general reading; in the 
 style of its composition and purity of dictum it is unsurpassed, and it has ever stood 
 in the first rank among the English classics. Beside general notings of the state of 
 English society in all its phases, at the time and anterior to that of writing, it incul- 
 cates sage maxims, morals, and advice, applicable at all times. It is bound in library 
 style, corresponding with our Dick, EoUin, &c. 
 
 From the Central Christian Herald. 
 
 One hundred and forty years ago, when there were no daily newspapers nor peri. 
 odicals, nor cheap fictions for the people, the Spectator had a daily circulation in 
 England. It was witty,' pithy, tasteful, and at times vigorous, and lashed the vices 
 and follies of the age, and inculcated many useful lessons which would have been 
 disregarded from more serious sources. It was widely popular. It contains some 
 very excellent writing, not in the spasmodic, moon-struck style of the fine writing of 
 the present day, but in a free, graceful, and flowing manner. It used to be con- 
 sidered essential to a good style and a knowledge of Belles-Lettres to have studied 
 the Spectator, and we are certain our age is not wise in the selection of some of the 
 substitutes which are used in its stead. It should yet be a parlor volume, which 
 should be read with great profit. 
 
 But we do not design to criticise the book, but have prefixed these few facts, for 
 the information of our readers, to a notice of a new edition of the work by Messrs. 
 Applegate & Oo. It is entirely of Cincinnati manufacture, and is in a style very 
 creditable to the enterprising house which has brought it out. 
 
 From the Cincinnati Commercial. 
 Applegate & Co., 43 Main street, have just published, in a handsome octavo 
 volume of 750 pages, one of the very best classics in our language. It would be 
 superfluous at this day to write a line in commendation of this work. The writings 
 of Addison are imperishable and will continue to charm youth and age while lan- 
 guage lasts. 
 
 Frmn the Cincinnati Gazette, 
 It is a source of general satisfaction to hear of the republication of a work of such 
 standard merit as the Spectator. In these days, when the press teems with the issue 
 of ephemeral publications, to subserve the purpose of an hour, to enlist momentary 
 attention, and leave no improvement on the mind, or impression on the heart — it is 
 a cause of congratulation to see, now and then, coming from the press such works as 
 this; to last as it should, so long as a pure taste is cultivated or esteemed. 
 
 From tlie Cincinnati Daily Times. 
 Criticism upon the literary merits of the Spectator would be rather late and 
 superfluous at the present time. Steele, Addison, and Swift are above criticism. 
 This edition is gotten up in style and form that will make it peculiarly acceptable to 
 the admirers of English literature. It is bound in one volume, with copious notes 
 of the contributors prefixed. The type is clear and elegant, the paper good, and the 
 binding excellently suitable for the library. 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 PLUTARCH'S LIVES. 
 
 With Historical and Critical Notes, and a Life op Plutarch. Illustrated with a 
 portrait. 1 vol., 8vo. Sheep, gpring back, marbled edge. 
 
 This edition has been carefully revised and corrected, and is printed upon entirely- 
 new plates, stereotyped > by ourselves, to correspond with our library edition of Dick's 
 Works, &e. 
 
 From the Nashville and Louisville Christian Advocate, 
 Plutarch's Lives. — This great work, to which has long since been awarded the 
 first honors of literature, is now published complete in one volume by Messrs 
 Applegate & Co., of Cincinnati, and offered at so low a price as to place it within the 
 reach of all. This is a desideratum, especially in this age of "many books." Next 
 in importance to a thorough knowledge of history, and in many respects fully equal 
 to it, is the study of well authenticated biography. For this valuable purpose, wo 
 know of no work extant superior to the fifty lives of Plutarch. It is a rare magazine 
 of literary and biographical knowledge. The eminent men whose lives compose this 
 work, constitute almost the entire of that galaxy of greatness and brightness, which 
 stretches across the horizon of the distant past, and casts upon the present time a 
 mild and steady luster. Many of them are among the most illustrious of the earth. 
 
 From the Ladies' Repository. 
 No words of criticism, or of eulogy, need be spent on Plutarch's Lives. Every 
 body knows it to be the most popular book of biographies now extant in any known 
 language. It has been more read, by the youth of all nations, for the last four or 
 five centuries in particular, than any ever written. It has done more good, in its 
 way, and has been the means of forming more sublime resolutions, and even more 
 sublime characters, than any other work with which we are acquainted, except the 
 Bible. It is a better piece of property for a young man to own, than an eighty acre 
 lot in the Mississippi Valley, or many hundred dollars in current money. We would 
 rather leave it as a legacy to a son, had we to make the choice, than any moderate 
 amount of property, if we were certain he would read it. There are probably but 
 few really great men now living, that have not been largely indebted to it for their 
 early aspirations, in consequence of which they have achieved their greatness. It is 
 a magnificent octavo, on solid and clear paper, well bound, and, in every way, neatly 
 and substantially executed. Most sincerely do we commend it, again and again, to 
 the reading public. 
 
 From Cist's Advertiser. 
 A beautiful edition of Plutarch's Lives, published by Applegate & Co., has been 
 laid on our table. Who has not read Plutarch ? and what individual of any force 
 of character has not made the " Lives " his study ? It was one of Napoleon's 
 favorite books, and doubtless had its full share in forming his character, and fitting 
 him for that splendid career of his, which has had no precedent heretofore, as it will 
 hardly find a parallel hereafter. This volume is handsomely gotten up, and in every 
 respect creditable to the good taste and enterprise of this firm. 
 
 From the Indiana State Sentinel. 
 Of the literary merit of this work, it is unnecessary to speak. Every school boy 
 knows " Plutarch's Lives " is essential in every well-informed man's library. In the 
 language of the translator of the present edition, "if the merits of a work may be 
 estimated from the universality of its reception, Plutarch's Lives have a claim to the 
 first honors of literature. No book has been more generally sought after, or read 
 with greater avidity." 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ROLLIN'S ANCIENT HISTORY. 
 
 The Ancient History of the Carthagenians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and 
 Persians, Grecians and Macedonians, including a History of the Arts and Sciences 
 of the Ancients, with a Life of the Author. 2 vols., royal 8vo. Sheep, spring back, 
 marble edge. 
 
 One of the most complete and impartial works ever published. It takes us back 
 to early days, and makes us live and think with the men of by-gone centuries. It 
 spreads out to us in a pleasant and interesting style, not only the events which char- 
 acterized the early ages, but the inner world of thought and feeling, as it swayed 
 the leading minds of the times. No library is complete without Rollin's Ancient 
 History. 
 
 From the Western Recorder. 
 A new edition of Rollin's Ancient History has just been issued by Applegate & 
 Co. The value and importance of this work are universally acknowledged. Every 
 private library is deficient without it ; and it is now furnished at so cheap a rate, that 
 every family should have it. It should be placed in the hands of all our youth, as 
 infinitely more instructive and useful than the thousand and one trashy publications 
 with which the country is deluged, and which are so apt to vitiate the taste, and ruin 
 thfe minds of young readers. One more word in behalf of this new edition of Rol- 
 lin : It may not be generally known, that in previous English editions a large and 
 interesting portion of the work has been suppressed-. The deficiencies are here sup- 
 plied and restored from the French editions, giving the copy of Messrs. Applegate & 
 Co. a superiority over previous English editions. 
 
 From the Sprin^eld Republic. 
 
 A superb edition of this indispensable text and reference book is published by 
 Messrs. Applegate & Co. The work in this form has been for some years before the 
 public, and is the best and most complete edition published. The work is comprised 
 in two volumes of about 600 pages each, containing the prefaces of Rollin and the 
 "History of the Arts and Sciences of the Ancients," which have been omitted in 
 most American editions. 
 
 From the Western Christian Advocate. 
 
 The work is too well known, and has too long been a favorite to require any com- 
 mendation from us. Though in some matters more recent investigations have led to 
 conclusions different from those of the Author, yet his general accuracy is unques- 
 tionable 
 
 From the Methodist Protestant, Baltimore. 
 
 This work is too well known as standard — as necessary to the completion of every 
 gentleman's library — that any extended notice of it would be folly on our part. We 
 have named it for the purpose of calling the attention of our readers to the beautiful 
 edition issued by the enterprising house of Messrs. Applegate & Co. Those who 
 have seen their edition of Dick's Works, Plutarch's Lives, bpectator, &c., &c., may 
 form a correct idea of the style. We call it a beautiful library edition. The paper 
 is good, the type clear, the binding substantial, and the whole getting up just such 
 as becomes standard works of this class. 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 MOSHEIM'S CHURCH HISTOEY, 
 
 Ancient and Modern, from the birth of Christ to the Eighteenth Century, in 
 which the Rise, Progress, and Variations of Church Power are considered in their 
 connection with the state of Learning and Philosophy; and the Political History of 
 Europe during that period, continued up to the present time, by Charles Coote, 
 LL. D. 806 pages, 1 vol., quarto, spring back, marbled edge. 
 
 From the Gospel Herald. 
 This edition forms the most splendid volume 6f Church History ever issued from 
 the American press; is printed with large type, on elegant paper, and altogether 
 forms the most accessible and imposing history of the Church that is before the 
 public. The former editions of Mosheim have ever been objectionable in conse- 
 quence of the amount of matter crowded into a single page. To do this, very small 
 type were necessarily used, and the lines were so crowded, that the close and con- 
 tinued perusal of the work was very injurious to the eyes. This edition avoids all 
 these evils, and we most heartily recommend it. 
 
 From the Masonic Review, 
 This great standard history of the Church from the birth of Christ, has just been 
 issued in a new dress by the extensive publishing house of Applegate & Co. Nothing 
 need be said by us in relation to the merits or reliability of Mosheim's History : it 
 has long borne the approving seal of the Protestant world. It has become a standard 
 work, and no puMic or private library is complete without it ; nor can an individual 
 Ibe well posted in the history of th^.Christian Church for eighteen hundred years, 
 without having carefully studied Mosheim. We wish, however, particularly to 
 recommend the present edition. The pages are in- large double columns ; the type is 
 large and very distinct, and the printing is admirable, on fine white paper. It is 
 really a pleasure to read such print, and we recommend our friends to purchase this 
 edition of this indispensable work. 
 
 From the Telescope, Dayton, O. 
 
 This work has been placed upon our table by the gentlemanly and enterprising 
 publishers, and we are glad of an opportunity to introduce so beautiful an edition of 
 this standard Church history to our readers. The work is printed on beautiful white 
 paper, clear large type, and is bound in one handsome volume. No man ever sat 
 down to read Mosheim in so pleasing a dress. What a treat is such an edition to 
 one who has been studying this elegant work in small close print of other editions. 
 Any one who has not an ecclesiastical history should secure a copy of this edition. 
 
 It is not necessary for us to say anything in relation to the merits of Mosheim's 
 Church History. For judgment, taste, candor, moderation, simplicity, learning, 
 accuracy, order, and comprehensiveness, it is uncqualed. The author spared no 
 pains to examine the original authors and ". genuine sources of sacred history," and 
 to scrutinize all the facts presented by the light of the " pure lamps of antiquity." 
 
 From Professor Wrightson. 
 Whatever book has a tendency to add to our knowledge of God, or the character 
 or conduct of his true worshipers, or that points out the errors and mistakes of for- 
 mer generations, must have an elevating, expanding, and purifying influence on the 
 human mind. Fully as important, however, is it that all the facts and phases of 
 events should be exhibited with truthfulness, perspicuity, and vigor. To the Chris- 
 tian world, next to the golden Uible itself, in value, is an accurate, faithful, and life- 
 like delineation of the rise and progress, the development and decline of the Christian 
 Church in all its varieties of sects and denominations, their tenets, doctrines, man- 
 ners, customs, and government. Such a work is Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. 
 Like " Eollin's History of the Ancients," it is the standard, and is too wpII know, 
 to need a word of comment. 
 
APPLEGATE & OO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 GATHERED TREASURES FROM THE MINES OF LITERATURE. 
 
 Containing Tales, Sketches, Anecdotes, and Gems of Thought, Literary, Moral, 
 Pleasing and Instructive. Illustrated with steel plates. 1 vol. octavo. Embossed. 
 
 To furnish a volume of miscellaneous literature both pleasing and instructive, has 
 been the object of the editor in compiling this work, as well as to supply, to some 
 extent, at least, the place that is now occupied by publications which few will deny 
 are of a questionable moral tendency. 
 
 It has been the intention to make this volume a suitable traveling and fireside com- 
 panion, profitably engaging the leisure moments of the former, and adding an addi- 
 tional charm to the cheerful glow of the latter ; to blend amusement with instruction, 
 pleasure with profit, and to present an extensive garden of vigorous and useful plants, 
 and beautiful and fragrant flowers, among which, pferchance, there may be a few of 
 inferior worth, though none of utter inutility. While it is not exclusively a religious 
 work, yet it contains no article that may not be read by the most devoted Christian. 
 
 From the Intelligencer, 
 This may emphatically be termed a reading age. Knowledge is increasing in a 
 wonderful ratio. The night of ignorance is fast receding, and the dawn of a better 
 and brighter day is before the world. The demand for literature is almost universal. 
 The people will read and investigate for themselves. How important, then, to place 
 within their reach such books that will instruct the mind, cheer the heart, and im- 
 prove the understanding — books that are rich in the three grand departments of 
 human knowledge — literature, morals, and religion. Such a book is " Gathered 
 Treasures." We can cheerfully recommend it to all, 
 
 From the Cincinnati Daily Times. 
 This is certainly a book of rare merit, and well calculated for a rapid and general 
 circulation. Its contents present an extensive -variety of subjects, and these not only 
 carefully but judiciously selected, and arranged in appropriate departments. Its con- 
 tents have been highly spoken of by men of distinguished literary acumen, both 
 editors and ministers of various Christian denominations. We cheerfully recom- 
 mend it. 
 
 From, the Cincinnati Temperance Organ, 
 A book of general merit, diversified, yet truly rich and valuable in its interests ; 
 thrilling in many of its incidents ; instructive in principle, and strictly moral in its 
 tendency. It is well calculated for a family book, one that a father need not be 
 afraid to place in the hands of his children. We hope it will meet with an exten- 
 sive sale. 
 
 Gathered Treasures from the Mines of Literature. — " One of the most 
 interesting everyday books ever published. Like the Spectator, it may be perused 
 again and again, and yet aiFord something to interest and amuse the reader. Its 
 varied and choice selections of whatever is beautiful or witty, startling or amusing, 
 can not fail to afford rich cnjoyiuent to minds of every character, and a pleasant 
 relaxation from more severe and vigorous reading.' 
 
 Gathered Treasures. — " A choice collection of short and interesting articles, 
 comprising selections from the ablest authors. Unlike voluminous works, its varied 
 selections afford amusement for a leisure moment, or entertainment for a winter 
 evening. It is alike a companion for the railroad car, the library and parlor, and 
 
 never fails to interest its reader.' 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 NOTES ON THE TWENTY-FIVE ARTICLES OF RELIGION, 
 As received and taught by Methodists in the United States, 
 
 In which the doctrines are carefully considered and supported by the testimony of 
 the Holy Scriptures. By Rev. A. A. Jjmeson, M. D. 12mo, embossed cloth. 
 
 This book contains a clear exposition of the doctrines of the Articles, and of the 
 errors against which the Articles were directed, written in a popular style, and 
 divided into sections, for the purpose of presenting each doctrine and its opposite 
 error in the most prominent manner. 
 
 ' From Rev. John Miller, 
 It is a book for the Methodist and for the age — a religious multum in parvo— 
 combining sound theology with practical religion. It should be found in every 
 Methodist family. 
 
 From tile Western Christian Advocate. 
 The author intended this volume for the benefit of the " three great divisions of 
 American Methodism, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Methodist Protestant 
 Church, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South." The articles are taken up one 
 by one, and their contents analyzed, explained, and defended with much ability. 
 The style is clear and forcible; the illustrations are just, the arguments sound. 
 The author has performed a good and useful work for all the Methodist bodies in the 
 world ; as his book will furnish a very satisfactory exposition of the leading doctrines 
 of Methodism. We cordially recommend Mr. Jimeson's volume to the perusal of 
 our readers, as well as to all Christian people, whether ministers or laymen. 
 
 DICK'S THEOLOGY. 
 
 Lectures on Theology. By the late Rev. John Dick, D. D., Minister of the United As- 
 sociate Congregation, Grayfrier, Glasgow, and Professor of Theology to the United 
 Session Church. Published under the superintendence of his Son. With a Biographical 
 Introduction. By an American Editor. "With a Steel Portrait of Dr. Dick. 
 
 1 vol. Imperial Octavo, sheep, marble edge, -spring back 
 
 Do do do do do embossed jdo 
 
 Do do do do half antique do 
 
 Do do do do Imt. Turkey full gilt do 
 
 Do do do do Super. Turkey, beveled sides, full gilt 
 
 From the Christian Instructor. 
 
 " These Lectures were read by their Author in the discharge of his professional functions : 
 they embody the substance of his Essay on Inspiration, and the peculiar views on Church 
 Government, which he advanced in his Lectures on the Acts. 
 
 " The Lectures throughout, display an extensive and most accurate knowledge of the 
 great variety of important topics which come before him. His system has all the advan- 
 tages of fair proportion ; there is nothing neglected, and nothing overloaded. His taste is 
 correct and pure, even to severity ; nothing is admitted either in language or in matter, that 
 can not establish the most indisputable right to be so." 
 
 From ilie Christian Journal. 
 
 " We recommend this work in the very strongest terms to the Biblical student. It is, as 
 a whole, superior to any other system of theology in our language. As an elementary 
 book, especially fitted for those who are commencing the study of divinity, it is unrivaled." 
 
 From Professor "Wrightson. 
 " This is a handsome octavo work of 600 pages, published in uniform style with tht 
 other valuable standard works of Applegate & Co. It contains a thorough and enlightened 
 view of Christian Theology, in which the author presents in . beautiful, simple, and forcible 
 style, the evidences of authenticity of the sacred text, the existence and attributes of the 
 Deity, the one only and unchangeable God. The fall of man, and its consequences, and 
 the restoration of the fallen through intercession of the Crucified. It is one of the most 
 simple and yet elevated of works devoted to sacred subjects." 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 PETERSON'S rAXILIAH SCIENCE; 
 Or, the Scieutific Explanation of Common Things. 
 
 Edited by R. E. Peterson, Member of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Phila. 
 delphia. 18mo., neatly bound in cloth. 
 
 From the Masonic Review. 
 This is a work of rare merit. It furnishes an immense amount of valuable inform- 
 ation in relation to matters and things that are constantly presented to the mind, and 
 which are so common that tliey are overlooked. We have not seen a work in a long 
 time that we deem of so much value as the book before us. It should be in every 
 family, for more information can be gained from it, than from half the books afloat. 
 We most heartily commend it to the public. \ 
 
 From the Odd Fellows' Literary Gazette. 
 How often have we heard parents rebuke a child for asking what they term " silly 
 questions," when they were unable to answer their artless inquiries. The desire for 
 knowledge is ever leading children into asking questions, which, from their novelty, 
 are set down as foolish, when, in reality, they can be answered on scientific principles. 
 This little work is designed to explain many of these things j it contains much nseful 
 and practical scientific knowledge, in a very popular and entertaining form, suffi- 
 ciently plain to be understood by a child, and yet aflfbrding instruction to persons of 
 mature years. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE. 
 
 A Practical Manual for acquiring the art of Reading, Speaking, and Composing German. By 
 Theodore Soden, Professor of the German Language and Literatm-e, at the Woodward and 
 Hughes' High Schools of Cincinnati. 1 vol, 12mo. half cloth. 
 
 From Alex. H. MoGuffet, Esq., Cincinnati. 
 
 * * * Prof Soden's "Elements of the German Language" is superior to any other 
 Treatise on the German Language with which I am acquainted. 
 
 To name only a few of its more prominent merits : — its order and method seem to be espe- 
 cially adapted to the genius of the German language ; — its exercises are simple aud carefully 
 progressive. They are made up of matter calculated to interest as well as to instruct the pupil, 
 and embrace a large proportion of the idionlatic expressions of the language, particularly of the 
 colloquial character. 
 
 The work is very complete in embracing aU the more important grammatical rules and forms 
 (with copious exercises under each), and omitting only such as by their minuteness and compli- 
 cation "would tend rather to confuse than assist the beginner. 
 
 It everywliere bears the marks of most careful preparation, and is evidently the work of an 
 experienced practical teacher. 
 
 From Wm. If ast, D. D.. of " Der Christliche Apologete," Cincinnati. 
 » * » Mr. Soden's work is truly superior, original and the fruit of successful expe- 
 rience in teaching. A peculiar recommendation of it is, that the student can make immediate 
 practical use of every lesson he learns. * * * 
 
 From Dr. J. S. Ukzickeu, Cincinnati. 
 This work has been compiled with great care and judgment, and is far more comprehensive 
 and practical than any similar work 1 know of. It is well adapted for the use of our High 
 Schools, and especially for those of English parentage who wish to study the Germau Language. 
 
 From J. B. Mooeman, Esq., Cincinnati. 
 I have, with some care, examined Prof. Soden's Elements of the German Language, and I think 
 it will be found to be all that it was intended to be, " A Practical Manual for acquiring the Art 
 of Reading, Speaking, and Composing German." Its beginning is so simple, and tlie advance 
 to the moie difficult so gradual, that it must be vei-y useful and even interesting to all who desira 
 to learn a language " with which none that lives may enter tlie arena." 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 METHODISM EXPLAINED AND DEFENDED. 
 By Rev. John S. Inskip. 12mo., embossed cloth. 
 
 From the Herald and Journal. 
 We have read this book with no ordinary interest, and, on the whole, rejoice in its 
 appearance for several reasons — First, It is a concise and powerful defense of every 
 essential feature of Methodism, now-a-days so much assailed by press and pulpit. 
 Second, The general plan and character of the work are such, that it will be read 
 and appreciated by the great masses of our people who are not familiar with more 
 extended and elaborate works. Third, It is highly conservative and practical in its 
 tendencies, and will eminently tend to create liberal views and mutual concession 
 between the ministry and laity for the good of the whole — a feature in our economy 
 never to be overlooked. Fourth, This work is not written to advocate some local or 
 neighborhood prejudice; neither to confute some particular heresy or assault; but its 
 views are peculiarly denominational and comprehensive, indicating the careful and 
 wide observation of the author — free from bigotry and narrow prejudice. 
 
 From the Sprin^eld Republic. 
 We have read this new work of Rev. J. S. Inskip with great pleasure and profit. 
 It in very truth explains and defends Methodism, and, as the introduction (written 
 by another,) says, " its pages cover nearly the whole field of controversy in regard to 
 the polity of the Methodist Church, and present a clear and candid exposition of 
 Methodism in a clear and systematic form, and highly argumentative style. It is a 
 book for the times, and should be read by all who desire to become more intimately 
 acquainted with the Methodist economy. It excels all other works of its class in the 
 arrangement and judicious treatment of its subject." It has evidently been written 
 with great prudence and care in reference to the facts and evidences on which the 
 arguments are predicated. This book will doubtless be of general service to the 
 Church, and an instrument of great good. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 As Exemplified in the Conduct of its Sincere Professors. 
 
 By Rev. W. Secker. This is a book of rare merit, full of thought-exciting 
 topics, and is particularly valuable as an aid to Christian devotion. 12mo., embossed 
 cloth. . 
 
 From tJie Madison Courier. 
 This is a reprint of a, quaint old English book, entitled "The None-Such Pro- 
 fessor in his Meridian Splendor." It abounds in pithy sentences and suggestive 
 expressions, and should be read by such as wish to put a spur to thought. 
 
 From Rev. N. Summerhell, 
 
 This work can be best understood by presenting an outline of its contents : 
 
 Part First, answers why Christians should do more than others. 
 
 Part Second, considers what Christians do more than others. 
 
 Part Third, shows that the Scriptures require of Christians singular principles, or 
 to do more than others. 
 
 Part Fourth, imparts instruction to those who wish to do more than others. 
 
 This work is peculiarly free from sectarianism, and breathes out, in short but 
 balanced sentences, the most Heavenly devotion and Christian piety, while probing 
 tie religious character with the most searching scrutiny. 
 
APPLmATE & UO.'S FUBJLIVATION.S. 
 
 SACRED IITERATURE OF THE LORD'S PI'AYER. 
 
 In which the terms are defined, and the text carefully considered 12mo., cloth. 
 
 " This is a volume of rare excellence, written in the i uthor's usual style of great 
 beauty and elegance. It sparkles with gems of elevated thought, and abounds in the 
 most happy illustrations of the great philosophical bearings of the several petitiong 
 of the Lord's Prayer on the general system of Kevealed Religion, while their philos- 
 ophy is very forcibly applied to the various duties of practical Christianity. 
 
 " The introductory chapter is a learned and patient research into the real origin and 
 history of the use of this prayer, while the succeeding chapters can not fail both to 
 instruct the head and improve the heart. We have not read a more interesting book 
 for many years, and can most cordially recommend it to every lover of chaste theo- 
 logical literature. It is a 12mo., gotten up in the best style of the art." 
 
 RELIGIOUS COITRTSHIP; 
 Or, Marriage on Christian Principles. 
 
 By Daniel Defoe, Author of " Eobinson Crusoe." 
 
 " Who has not read Robinson Crusoe ? It has fascinated every boy, and stimulated 
 his first taste for reading. Defoe has been equally happy in this present work, in 
 interesting those of riper years, at an^ age (Shakspeare's age of the lover) when the 
 mind is peculiarly susceptible of impi-essions. Although but few copies of this work 
 have ever been circulated in America, yet it has a popularity in England coextensive 
 with his unparalleled ' Crusoe.' " 
 
 From the Masonic Re-oiew, 
 Applegate & Co., have just issued, in their usual good style, a new edition of this 
 old and valuable work by Defoe. It treats of marriage on Christian principles, and 
 is designed as a guide in the selection of a partner for life. Young persons should 
 by all means read it, and with particular attention, for it furnishes important direc- 
 tions relative to the most important act of life. 
 
 Home for the Millmn ; or Gravel Wall Buildings. — This is one of the most desirable booK pub- 
 lished, for all who contemplate erecting dwellings or outhouses, as the cost is not over one-tnird 
 that of briek or frame, and quite as durable. Illustrated witli nnmeruus plans, and a cut of the 
 author's residence, with full directions, that every man may be his own builder. 
 
 Tlie Camp Meeting and Sabbath School Chorister — A neat Sunday School Hymn Book. 
 
 Sacred Mclodeon. — A Collection of Revival Hymns. By Rev. R. M. Dalby. 
 
 NigUingale ; or Normal Scliool Singer. — Designed for Schools, Home Circle, and Private Prac- 
 tice. On a Mathematically constructed System of Notation. By A. D. Fillmore, author of Uui- 
 versal Musician, Christian Psalmist, etc. 
 
 lectures and Sermons. By Rev. F. G. Black, of the Cumberland Presbyterian Chui-ch. 12mo., 
 embossed cloth. 
 
 Western Adventure. By MoClunq. Illustrated. 
 
 American Church Harp. — A Choice Selection of Hymns and Tunes adapted to all Christian 
 Chuiches, Singing Schools, and Private Families. By Rev. W. RmjiEHAEi. 12mo.,half morocco, 
 
APPLEGATB & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 FARMER'S HAND-BOOK. 
 
 By JosiAH T. Marshall, author of " Emigrant's True Gruide." 12mo., cloth, 
 500 pages. 
 
 The publishers are gratified that they are enabled to satisfy the universal demand 
 for a volume which comprises a mass of superior material, derived from the most 
 authentic sources and protracted research. 
 
 The contents of the " Farmer's Hand-Book " can be accurately known and duly 
 estimated only by a recurrence to the Index of Subjects, which occupies twenty-four 
 columns, comprising about fifteen hundred different points of information respecting 
 the management of a Farm, from the first purchase and clearing of the land, to all 
 its extensive details and departments. The necessary conveniences, the household 
 economy, the care of the animals, the preservation of domestic health, the cultivation 
 of fruits with the science and taste of the arborist, and the production of the most 
 advantageous articles for sale, are all displayed in a plain, instructive, and most 
 satisfactory manner, adapted peculiarly to the classes of citizens for whose use and 
 benefit the work is specially designed. Besides a general outline of the Constitution, 
 with the Naturalization and Pre-emption Laws of the United States, there is 
 appended a Miscellany of 120 pages, including a rich variety of advice, hints, and 
 rules, the study and knowledge of which will unspeakably promote both the comfort 
 and welfare of all who adopt and practice them. 
 
 The publishers are assured that the commendations which the " Farmer's Hand- 
 book " has received, are fully merited ; and they respectfully submit the work to 
 Agriculturists, in the full conviction that the Farmer or the Emigrant, in any part 
 of the country, will derive numberless blessings and improvements from his acquaint- 
 ance with Mr. Marshall's manual. 
 
 LORENZO DOW'S COMPLETE WORKS. 
 
 The dealings of GOD, MAIf, AND THE DEVIL, as exemplified in the LIFE, EXPE- 
 RIENCE, AND TRAVELS of LORENZO DOW, in a period of over half a century, together 
 with his POLEMIC AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS COMPLETE. 
 
 To which is added — 
 
 The Vicissitudes of Life, — By Peggz Dow. 
 
 With an Introductory Essay, — By John Dowling, D. D., of New York. Making the best and 
 only complete edition published. 1 vol, octavo. Library binding. Do., do.. Embossed. Spring 
 back, marble edge. 
 
 FAMILY TREASURY, 
 
 Of Western Literature, Science, and Art. Illustrated with Steel Plates. 8vo., 
 cloth, gilt sides and back. 
 
 This work most happily blends valuable information and sound morality, with the 
 gratification of a literary and imaginative taste. Its pages abound in sketches of 
 history, illustrations of local interest, vivid portraitures of virtuous life, and occa- 
 sional disquisitions and reviews. 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATONS. 
 
 WEBB'S FREEMASON'S MONITOR! 
 
 By Thomas Smith Webb, Past Grand Master, etc. 
 
 A New Edition, printed on fine' paper, large and clear type, beautifully and symbolically 
 illustrated, containing all the Degrees, from Entered Apprentice to Knights of Malta, together 
 with a sketch of the Origin of Masonry, Government of the Fraternity, Ceremony of Opening 
 and Closing the Lodge, with full directions for Instituting and Installing all Masonic bodies, 
 to which is added — 
 
 A Monitor of the Ancient and Accepted Bite, 
 
 Containing arafrle Illustrations of all the Grades, from Secret Master to Sovereign Grand Inspec- 
 tor-General, including the series of Eleven Grades, Ifnown as the INEFFABLE DECil£EE.S, 
 
 arranged according to the work practiced under the jurisdiction of the Supiieme Council of the 
 33d Degree. By E. T, 6arson, Sov. G. Com. Ohio G. Consistory of P. R. S. 32°. 1 vol., 12rao., 
 cloth, 420 pages. $1.00. 
 
 A Voice frofa all ths Maaonir, bodies in Cincinnati. 
 
 Cincinnati, June Ist, ]858. 
 Gentlemen : — Havinf^ carefully examined your new edition of " Webb's Freemaaon's Monitor," we And it to corres- 
 pond witli tJie System, of work as noiv adopted in all the Masonic bodies in tiie United States, and we talte great pleas- 
 ure in recommending it to the Craft throuf;hout the country, as being the most useful and well-arranged practical 
 Manual of Freemasonry that we have yet seen. 
 
 D. I-r. MBAES, W. M. of N. C. Harmony Lodge, No. 2. 
 WILLIAM .SEE, W. M. of Miami Lodge. No. 40. 
 
 J. M. PARKS. W. M. of Lafayette Lodge, No. 81. 
 HOWARD MATTHEWS. W. M. of Cincinnati Lodge, No. 133. 
 C. MO )RE. W. M. of MoMiUan Lodge. No. 141. 
 
 E. T. CARsON. W M. of Cynthia Lodge, No. 155. 
 ANDREW PFIRRMANN, W. M. of Haoselmann Lodge, No. 208. 
 WM, 0. JirDDLETON, H. P. of Cincinnati R. A. Chapter, No. 2. 
 CHAS. BROWN. H. P. of McMillan R. A. Chapter. No. 19. 
 
 Messes. Applbgatk & Co, C. F. HANSELMANN, (J. 0, of Cincinnati Encampment, No. 3. 
 
 From the Grand Master of Ohio. 
 
 * * * The admirable arrangement of 'the emblems of Masonry in your edition of WebVs Freemason's Monitor 
 makes the wort complete, apd I am much plcitsed to say it meets my entire approval. Accept my thanks for the 
 beautiful copy sent me, which I assure you I prize highly. HORACE M. STOKES, Grand Master of Ohio. 
 
 Grand Lodge op Indiana, May 24, 1858. 
 Gentlemen ; — I have examined with care your late edition of " Webb's Masonic Monitor," and freely pronounce it 
 to be the best book of the Idnd extant. The language, charges, &c., I have used in all my Masonic work, And would 
 not change under any circumstances. I freely recommend the " Monitor" to be adopted and used in my jurisdiction- 
 
 SOLOMON P. BAYLESS, Gmnd Master of Masons in Indiana. 
 
 * * * I most cheerfully award to it my testimony, as being the best hand-lxiok for the Masonic student now extant, 
 and invaluable to the officers of the Lodge. JOHN M. PARKS, Grand Puissant of the 
 
 Grand Council of Select Masters of the State of Ohio. 
 
 From Distinguished Officers of 32°. 
 
 * * * It is really the only complete Monitor of the Rite in existence As presiding olEcer of the Lodge of Perfection 
 and Chapter of Kose Croix, in this City [Cincinnati], I have long been in need, for practical use, cf just this work, 
 and I thank Brother Carson, most heartily, for the valuable service he has rendei-ed us of the Scotch Rite, in preparing 
 it. The work is arranged according to the system adopted in the Northern Jiu-isdiction of the I'nited States, and the 
 directions are so full and complete, as to leave nothing to be desh-ed. Yoiii-s truly, 
 
 GKO. HOADLEY, 32°. 
 
 * * * The work must prove an acceptable offering to the Fi-atemity, as well from the superior excellence of its 
 mechanical execution, as from the intrinsic merits of its contents ; and every Mason should possess himself of a copy. 
 
 I am, with respect, youi-s truly, CALEB B. SMITH, Past Grand Master of Indiana, 
 
 and Grand P. of Cincinnati Council of Royal and Select Masters 
 
 METHODIST FAMILY MANUAL. 
 
 By Kev, C. S, Lovell. 12mo., embossed cloth. Containing the Doctrines and 
 Moral Government of the Methodist Church, with Scripture proofs; accompanied 
 with appropriate questions, to which is added a systematic plan for studying ths 
 Bible, rules for the government of a Christian family, and a brief catechism upon 
 experimental religion. 
 
 This work supplies a want which has long been felt among the members of the 
 Methodist Church. As a family manual, and aid to the means of grace and practical 
 duties of Christianity, it is certainly a valuable work. It also contains the Disci- 
 pline of the Church, with Scriptural proofs, and appropriate questions to each chap 
 ter. It is certainly an excellent book for religious instruction and edification. We 
 most heartily commend it to the Methodist public, and hope it may have a wide 
 circulation and be made a blessing to all. 
 
APPLEGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 TEMPERANCE MUSICIAN. 
 A choice selection of original and selected Temperance Music, arranged for one, 
 two, three, or four voices, with an extensive variety of Popular Temperance Songs. 
 32mo. 
 
 From the Summit, (O.,) Beacon. 
 This is a neat volume, well printed, and well bound, containing 256 pages. It is 
 the best collection of temperance songs and music we have seen. Were a few copies 
 secured in every town in Ohio, in the hands of the warm-hearted friendsof the Maine 
 Law, an element of power and interest would be added to temperance meetings, and 
 a stronger impulse given to the onward march of the cold water army. 
 
 From the Temperance Chart. 
 
 This will certainly become one of the most popular temperance song books which 
 has been published in the country. We think it is, so far as we have examined, the 
 best collection of songs we have seen. Some of thom are exceedingly beautiful and 
 
 affecting. 
 
 From tlie Clevdand Commercial. I 
 
 This is a popular Temperance Song Book, designed for the people, and should be 
 in every family. We can recommend it to the patronage of all our temperance 
 friends, as the best temperance songster, with music attached, we have seen. The 
 music in this work is set according to Harrison's Numeral System, for two reasons : 
 First, because it is so simple and scientific that all the people can easily learn 
 it. Second, it is difficult to set music in a book of this aize and shape, except in 
 numerals. 
 
 UNIVERSAL MUSICIAN. 
 
 By A. D. Fillmore, Author of Christian Psalmist, &c., containing all Systems 
 of Notation. New Edition, enlarged. 
 
 The title, " Universal Musician," is adopted because the work is designed for 
 everybody. The style of expression is in common plain English, so that it may be 
 adapted to the capacities of all, instead of simply pleasing the fancy of the few, who 
 are already thoroughly versed in science and literature. 
 
 Most of the music is written in Harrison's Numeral System of Notation, because 
 it is the most intelligible of all the different systems extant ; and is therefore better 
 adapted to the wants of community. Music would be far better understood and 
 appreciated by the people generally, if it were all written in this way. For it is 
 more easily written, occupies less space, is more quickly learned, more clearly under- 
 stood, is less liable to be forgotten, and will answer all common purposes better than 
 any other. But the world is full of music, written in various systems, and the 
 learner should acquire a knowledge of all the principal varieties of notation, so as to 
 be able to read all music. To afford this knowledge to all, is the object of the pres- 
 ent effort. 
 
 Poetry, which is calculated to please as well as instruct, has been carefully selected 
 from many volumes already published, and from original compositions furnished 
 expressly for this work. Much of the music is original, which is willingly submitted 
 to the ordeal of public opinion. Some of it certainly possesses some merit, if we 
 may judge from the avidity with which it is pilfered and offisred to the public by 
 some, would-be, authors. 
 
APPLBGATE & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 SPEECHES AND WRITINGS OF HON. THOMAS F. MAESHALL. 
 
 As a popular Orator of unrivaled powers and a writer of unsurpassed ability, Mr. Mar- 
 ' shall stands foremost among the prominent men of his day. The great reputation he has 
 acquired hoth as a speaker and writer, his long and active identity with and complete 
 ' knowledge of the political and social history of our country, have created a wide-spread 
 desire to see his numerous speeches and writings, on various subjects, in a permanent form. 
 We feel confident that ,any one who has heard Mr. Marshall speak or read his writings, 
 will appreciate their power and admire their beauty. 
 
 To meet Ij^is desire and to add a valuable contribution to the standard literature of our 
 own country, we have spared neither pains nor expense to prepare the work in the highest 
 style of the art. 
 .^. The work contains all of Mr. Marshall's finest efforts, since 1832. His able report on 
 '. I^anking and paper currency, — his speech against John Quinct" Adams, in Congress, — his 
 memorable Slavery Letters, the celebrated eulogy on Eiohaed H. Menifee, the Louisville 
 Journal letter, and his great Temperance Speech, will all be found in the work. Besides 
 these, it contains his entire Old Guard articles, and many other productions of equal interest 
 and ability. 
 
 1 vol. Octavo, with splendid Steel portrait of Mr. Marshall, Library binding, 
 do do do' do do half Antique. 
 
 From the Frankfort (Ky.) ComrmnweaUh. 
 It is not necessary to puff this work ; it will be sought by every man of literary taste in 
 the country. It will prove a valuable contribution to our standard literature, and the fame 
 i of the author will go down to posterity as the purest of our Americau classics. 
 
 From the MaysviUe (.Ky.) Eagle. 
 The work contains all those famous creations of genius that have rendered Mr. Marshal^ 
 SO remarkable as an orator and a man of genius, and is decidedly one of the most interest- 
 ing books that has ever been published. 
 
 From the Bowling Green (Ky.) Gazette. 
 The reputation which Mr. Marshall has acquired as an eloquent orator and forcible 
 writer, render this volume the object of almost universal desire. As a popular orator he 
 stands at the head of the class of American speakers, possessing great powers of elocution, 
 ripe scholarship, and the highest order of intellect. 
 
 From the LouisviUe Journal. 
 We presume that very few persons will decline taking this work. It will be found 
 exceedingly brilliant and powerful. It is the production of one of the master minds of the 
 nation. Eemarkable as Mr. Marshall is with his humor and his wondrous flights of fancy, 
 he is, we think, still more remarkable for his strong, deep sense and inexorable logic. 
 
 CHAIN or SACRED WONDERS. 
 
 Or a connected view of Scripture Scenes and Incidents, from the Creation to the end 
 of the last epoch. By Rev. S. A. Latta, A. M., M. D. Illustrated with two steel plates, 
 and a number of wood cuts. 1 vol. 8vo. cloth, marble edge. 
 
 do do do library style. 
 
 do do do embossed. 
 
 do do do half antique. 
 
 From the Cincinnati Daily Times. 
 
 The publishing house of Applegate & Co. is entitled to great praise for issuing so many 
 good and really valuable books, and so little of what is aptly termed "literary trash." The 
 largest work ever issued this side the AUeghaniea, was from the press of Applegate & Co., 
 Clark's Commentaries, in several massive volumes. Dick's works have also been issued in 
 a large and handsome volume by the same publishers. 
 
 The volume mentioned above is a work full of good reading, by an accomplished and 
 scholarly writer. It is well adapted to the Christian family circle, to Sabbath school and 
 religious libraries. The various sketches are admirably conceived, aKid written in a style 
 of simple purity which is very attractive. The design of the author is to attract the atten- 
 ,tion of youth to the Bible, and with that view he has endeavored to make his work an 
 -instrument of much good. It is, indeed, an excellent book. 
 
KF 213 ^665 B27 
 
 Author 
 
 Marshall, Hon. OSiomas 
 
 ^"'° Sppeches and Writings 
 
 Vol. 
 
 Copy 
 
 Date 
 
 Borrower's Name