NO CHOICE BUT WAR

-PATRICK HENRY.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak,-unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power.

Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston. The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come!

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun. The next gale that

sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethern are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

AMERICAN INNOVATIONS-MADISON..

Why is the experiment of an extended republic to be rejected, merely because it may comprise what is new? Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lesson of their own experience? To this manly spirit posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example, of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre in favor of private rights and public happiness. Had no important step been taken by the leaders of the Revolution, for which a precedent could not be discovered, no government established, of which an exact model did not present itself, the people of the United States might at this moment have been numbered among the melancholy victims of misguided councils;-must, at best, have been laboring under the weight of some of those forms

which have crushed the liberties of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabric of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and perpetuate. If their works betray imperfections, we wonder at the fewness of them. If they erred most in the structure of the Union, this was the most difficult to be executed; this is the work which has been newmodelled by the act of your Convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide.

THE DIGNITY OF THE SENATE

-HENRY CLAY.

What patriotic purpose is to be accomplished by this expunging resolution? Can you make that not to be which has been? Can you eradicate from memory and from history the fact that in March 1834, a majority of the Senate of the United States passed the resolution which excites your enmity? Is it your vain and wicked object to arrogate to yourselves that power of annihilating the past which has been denied to Omnipotence itself? Do you intend to thrust your hands into our hearts and to pluck out the deeply-rooted convictions which are there? Or is it your design merely to stigmatize us? You cannot stigmatize us.

"Ne'er yet did base dishonor blur our name."

Standing securely upon our conscious rectitude, and bearing aloft the shield of the Constitution of our country, we declare your puny efforts impotent, and we defy all your power.

But why should I detain the Senate or needlessly waste my breath in fruitless exertions? The decree has gone forth. It is one of urgency, too. The deed is to be done,-that foul deed, which, like the stain on the hands of the guilty Macbeth, all ocean's waters will never wash out. Proceed, then, to the noble work which lies before you, and like other skilful executioners do it quickly. And, when you have perpetrated it, go home to the people, and tell them what glorious honors you have achieved for our common country. Tell them that you have extinguished one of the brightest and purest lights that ever burnt at the altar of civil liberty. Tell them that you have silenced one of the noblest batteries that ever thundered in defence of the Constitution, and that you have bravely spiked the cannon. Tell them that henceforward, no matter what daring or outrageous act any President may perform, you have forever hermetically sealed the mouth of the Senate. Tell them that he may fearlessly assume what power he pleases, snatch from its lawful custody the public purse, command a military detachment to enter the halls of the Capitol, overawe Congress, trample down the Constitution, and raze every bulwark of freedom, but that the Senate must stand mute, in silent submission, and not dare to lift an opposing voice; that it must wait until a House of Representatives, humbled and subdued like itself, and a majority of it composed of the

partisans of the President, shall prefer articles of impeachment. Tell them, finally, that you have restored the glorious doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance; and, when you have told them this, if the people do not sweep you from your places with their indignation, I have yet to learn the character of American free men.

PRESERVATION OF THE UNION BY FORCE

-CALHOUN.

It is said that the bill ought to pass, because the law must be enforced. The law must be enforced! The imperial edict must be executed! It is under such sophistry, couched in general terms, without looking to the limitations which must ever exist ir the practical exercise of power, that the most cruel and despotic acts ever have been covered. It was such sophistry as this that cast Daniel into the lions' den, and the three Innocents into the fiery furnace. Under the same sophistry the bloody edicts of Nero and Caligula were executed. The law must be enforced! Yes, the act imposing the tea-tax "must be executed." This was the very argument which impelled Lord North and his administration in that mad career which forever separated us from the British Crown. Under a similar sophistry, "that religion must be protected," how many massacres have been perpetrated, and how many martyrs have been tied to the stake! What! Acting on this vague abstraction, are you prepared to enforce a law, without considering whether it be just or unjust, constitutional or unconstitutional? Will you collect