quake. Coming years brought better feelings and sounder reasonings; and men have profited of their experience, and re-edified all that was most valuable: the Bank, the Army, the Navy, the system of fortifications; and we are again a nation. Our fortresses on the ocean and on the land, look out from many a hundred iron eyes, ready with indignation to blaze annoyance and destruction against hostile approach. Why, sir, do you not follow this enlightened experience in your judiciary? The very Turk or Tartar, though he demolish the palace and temple of classical antiquity, yet will he draw from the ruins materials for his stable and his seraglio. He who does not profit by that of others, stands in the next rank of fatuity to him who is a fool in spite of his own experience.

Let us not be told, sir, that the system of the resolution will augment the judiciary expenses. What will be expended in one way, will be saved in another. A saving to the citizen is a saving to the nation. These courts will perform and finish the judiciary labor in every district, circuit, and department. It will bring justice home, "and that right early," to those who are now compelled to travel for it; to wait for it; and to lavish their subsistence on the means of acquiring it. It may diminish a productive employment for us who come here to legislate for our constituents, and to litigate for our clients; but I trust we are sufficiently patriotic not to feel any attachment to a system, because it may augment our emoluments, when we know it must diminish the productive capital of our country. Sir, the people now expend less on the judiciary than on foreign relations. You give more, by some scores of thousands of dollars, for courtesy to other nations, than you pay for justice to your own citizens. It would be dishonorable to the Republic to be wanting to its dignity abroad; but can it be honest to be wanting in justice to its own citizens at

home?

The system of the bill, sir, cannot, it is agreed that it cannot endure; for circuits will become too numerous to add a new judge to the Supreme Judicial Court for each circuit. We are told in reply, that we should not legislate for posterity: "let posterity take care of itself." In what country, in what house, are we, sir, told this? Did the Pilgrims, the Bradfords, the Williamses, the Penns, the Smiths, migrate to this country for themselves, and not for posterity? Look out upon our American world: not a government was instituted; not a forest felled; not a city founded; not a house built; not a tree planted; and not for posterity. Where, and what should we have been, but for

those who cared for posterity? This House, sir, the great model of art and taste; the pride and ornament of our country, and of the republican world; the magnificent forum of legislation; the hallowed temple of justice-this House, sir, was it built for us, and for the present generation only? No, sir, it was founded by that man whose name spreads the light of glory over our nation, and whose whole life was but one act for his country-for the world, and for posterity. "Let posterity take care of itself!" To a gentleman who could feel and utter such a sentiment, I would address the words of the bereaved Macduff: "he hath no children."

The system of the resolution carries in itself the principles of durability. When new States shall be added to this Union, and form new districts, their judges will distribute justice, until enough for a new circuit shall have been formed, and then this circuit shall receive a new judge. This may be repeated as often as a new circuit may be formed; until circuit after circuit shall be extended to the utmost limits of our national domain. The Supreme Court will sit a supervising tribunal-regulating and correcting every inferior jurisdiction. When the multiplied calls for justice shall require, then it may be separated, like the highest English courts, into a fiscal, a criminal, and a civil tribunal. Two judges in each department, as they must of necessity be unanimous, will, almost of necessity, secure correct decisions.

Thus, sir, you may legislate, not for twenty years only, but, by Divine aid, for twenty centuries. Your judicial edifice will be extended, with your extending country; and will subserve the wants, and satisfy the requirements of these increasing States, and the multiplying millions of this great nation; until the American Eagle shall, with one wing, winnow the breezes of the Atlantic, and with the other, hover over the quiet waters of the Pacific; until the colossal power of the republic, standing on the lofty mountains of this continent, shall, with one hand, extend the olive branch to the peaceful nations of the earth, and with the other, wave the sword of justice over the satisfied and tranquil citizens of these widely extended regions.

I have thus, sir, according to the limited measure of my ability, made an effort to sustain the resolution, moved by the honorable gentleman from Virginia; and I should be in some sort satisfied with that effort, could I have brought to his aid any portion of that efficiency, which, on a great and former occasion, was brought to the aid of an illustrious citizen of that State, by a son of Rhode Island.

MR. SPEAKER: Permit me to join my voice to that of the many who have already mingled in this discussion. There is a kind of immortality associated with what may be deemed the perishable part of this mighty theme; and he who speaks of the venerated remains of Washington, must catch something of inspiration; and feel himself elevated to the loftiest purposes of our nature. Twice has this question come before this House, twice without a dissenting voice. Once, soon after the death of the illustrious Father of his Country covered the nation with mourning; and once, when, a few years ago, enquiry was made here, concerning the most appropriate method of carrying into effect the arrangement originally made between the bereaved family and the national government. If that arrangement of piety and patriotism cannot now be consummated with equal unanimity; nothing surely need fall in the way of performing it, under the exercise of our purest and best feelings.

In this controversy of patriotism among great States, concerning their respective interests in this question, it may be thought of one, geographically so inconsiderable as Rhode Island, that silence might more become her Representatives in this House, than any, the most perfect form of speech. Sir, in any arduous passage of arms, in any intricate question of council, Washington himself in his time did not so decide. Nor will one man in this Hall very severely censure my wish to be heard on this occasion; if he call to mind, that he, who in the darkest hour of revolutionary conflict, stood, in the estimation of the nation, and of that illustrious man, next to himself, was a native of that State. There was, there was a time, sir, when this man was the property of his whole country. If I look back towards the beginning of life, memory is in a moment filled with bright and joyous recollections of that time, when, even in the distant and humble neighborhood of my birth, the lessons of youth, and of childhood, when the very songs of the cradle, were the deeds, the glory, the praises of Washington.

Think you, sir, these teachings have ceased in the land; that these feelings are dead in our country? What then do we hear from the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. McDuffie)? Cannot we, who regard the buried remains of the great Father of our Country, as the earthly

cannot we, awed and subdued with gratitude, the hallowed repository, and roll back the stone with more than filial piety; cannot we approach from the door of the sepulchre, without the guilt of sacrilege? Cannot his country remove the remains of this, its great Founder; and carry them in solemn procession, accompanied by all the rites of religion, and all the sanctity of its ministers; and finally deposit them in the national cemetery provided for that purpose under the foundation of this building; which thence forth shall be, not only the temple of freedom, legislation, and justice, but also the august mansoleum of Washington? Who, sir, who, of al the civilized world, will, while these reverential movements are performing, who will point his finger at these solemnities, and call them a mere pageant?

It is the feeling, sir, the purpose of the persons, and not the place or the subject, which renders their deeds pious or profane. Can we never again without sacrilege look into the dark house of those so dear to us, until they, bursting the cerements of the tomb, are clothed with immortality? How often does the piety of children, how often the anxious affection of parents, induce them to remove the remains of endeared relatives, to places of more appropriate sepulture? How often do nations remove to their own countries, from distant foreig lands, the bones of their illustrious dead? Was it sacrilege in the Hebrews, when migrating from Egypt, to take from the consecrated cata comb or pyramid, where for centuries they had been deposited, the bones of the illustrious founder of one of their families, and the preserver of them all; and bearing them from the populous valley of the Nile, the learned and luxurious realm of the Pharaohs, the scene of all his glory; that they might carry them to a land of rocks and mountains; and render his burial place one of the eternal monuments of their country? So it has continued; and at this day it is, by the dwellers on the hill or on the plain, pointed out to the traveller as the tomb of Joseph the Patriarch.

Sir, what man is there who does not shudder with horror when he is told, that, not many years ago, a felonious gardener of the late proprietor of Mount Vernon, conceived the sacrilegious project of plundering the family ceme tery of those sacred remains; and of transporting to Europe the bones of Washington, and there offering them for sale as relics to the disciples or the fanatics of freedom in the old world. Procuring a false, or purloining the true key, he entered the tomb; but, in the darkness of night, and under the excitement of horror natural to the deed, he bore away those of another, by mistake; and left the hallowed bones of him, whose country would now with

filial piety place those sacred remains perfectly secured in a national mausoleum, under the eye, and in the safe-keeping of all future generations. We are told that the last will and testament of Washington, points out the place and directs the manner of his interment; and if we remove his bones from their present repository, we shall violate that will, and set at defiance principles dear to all civilized nations. Did indeed, then, this great man by his will prohibit this people from doing honor to his remains, by placing them in a mausoleum more suitable to his illustrious life, and to the gratitude of Americans? He, like all Christian men, directed by his last will, that his body should have Christian burial; and prescribed the manner, and selected the place for that purpose. How shall we expound that will? It has been expounded for us; and that too by one, who was the partner of his perils and triumphs, his labors and councils. One, who shared with him all life could give --and stood by him in the hour of dissolution. Think you, that she would have violated his will: and that too, in the beginning of her bereavement; in the first dark hours of her earthly desolation? "Taught by his great example,' she gave up those remains at the call of her country. For to her, as in life to him, the nation was their family; the whole people were their children. What man can believe, that this distinguished woman, alike beloved and honored by a whole people, would have given her consent to the removal, requested by the whole Congress in 1799, if she had believed what the gentleman from South Carolina now tells us, that such removal would have violated his last will, and been a sacrilege committed against the sanctuary of the tomb?

with his remains, after his death. When that immortal soul, now as we trust in beatitude, inhabited and animated his mortal part, where was the place, what was the service to which the voice of his country called him, and he was not there? In the toils of war, in the councils of peace, he was, soul and body, devoted to that people, whom he labored through life to build up into one great nation. Should that body think you, sir, at this time be less at the service of his country, than when alive with the imperishable soul it was Washington, and walked the world, for human welfare? If his whole life doth tell us, that he placed himself at the call of his country, then truly where should all that remains of him, be finally found, but where the same voice would place them?

We would not, in the language of the gentleman from South Carolina, raise over him "a pyramid, a monument, like the eternal mountains." No, en, the folly of ancient ambition has perished from the earth, while these its monuments still stand unmoved upon its surface. This House, we trust, will endure as long as this nation endures. Let this be the Mausoleum of Washington. We would place his remains in the cemetery built for that purpose, under the centre of that dome which covers the Rotundo. Directly over this on that floor, in accordance with the Resolution two years ago submitted to this House, we would erect a pedestrian statue of that man, sufficiently colossal, and placed on a pedestal so high and massy as might be required to fill and satisfy the eye, in the centre of that broad and lofty room, which, probably, has no equal in the architecture of the world.

learn where he may find his tomb. This House, this Mausoleum of one, who, prospered by Divine assistance, performed more for his country and for the human race, than any other mortal, shall be a place of pilgrimage for all nations. Hither will come the brave, the wise, the good, from every part of our country; not to worship, but to stand by the sepulchre and to relume the light of patriotism at the monument of Washington.

I cannot, sir, join in the pious incantation of some gentlemen, who would, in imagination, call up the mighty dead, and put them to inquisition, concerning these obsequies. Who, if he might, would bring back from the blessedness of heaven, to the cares of earth, one purified spirit; or for a moment interrupt the felicities of those realms of reality, by any thing which agitates human feelings, in this region of dust and shadows? Permit me to learn from his life, what his country may, with propriety, do

We must with deep and anxious_regret have perceived, that Virginia prefers her separate and exclusive claim to these venerated remains. It will never be forgotten, that Washington was a son of that distinguished State. Is not this honor enough to gratify the ambition of any people of any region of our earth? Why so avaricious of his glory, which like that of the sun falls with no diminished brightness on one region, because it shines on a thousand others? She needs it not. She will still have sons enough, warmed with noble ambition, to perfect and preserve the fabric of her glory. Washington was born, and lived for his country. Let the mighty base of his fame extend to his country, his united country, and to every part

of it. Then shall the young and the aspiring, in every region of our land, and through all coming generations, whether of humble or elevated origin, read the history of the great and the good; here they shall see by what monumental honors his country has consecrated his name; and thus, he who lived the most perfect man of one age, shall become the great and enduring model for all future time.

Let me, then, in behalf of our common country, implore Virginia, and the distinguished sons of Virginia now in this Hall, to look to a consummation of the arrangement of 1799. I do entreat them now to recollect and regard the unanimity of a no less distinguished delegation then, as worthy of all imitation. Let Virginia, "the fruitful mother of heroes and statesmen," not disregard the memory of her most illustrious matron, who, at the call of her country, surrendered her own individual and peculiar affection, to the promptings of a glorious patriotism.

At first, I confess it did appear to me that there might be something, in the removal of these remains, inappropriate to a birth-day celebration. It is not so. These two days, that of his birth, and that of this celebration, are separated by the whole duration of an hundred years. Between these two points, what a tide of events has rolled over the world! When the eye of recollection looks back to

wards that birth-day morning, what a succession of benefits, blessings, glories, seem to have been lighted up by that auspicious sun! Our Inde pendence, institutions, government, with all their concomitant excellences, we behold; and in all, the mighty agency of Washington! He seems to stand on earth among us, in the midst of his achievements, to receive our gratitude, and to witness his own fame. If we carry in procession these mouldering remains, it will help to bring us back to a perception of our common allotment, and teach us to realize his and our own mortality. In the midst of our gratulations, that such a man was born, we shall have before our eyes the memorial, that such a man has died; and the joys of the Centennial Birth-Day shall be chastened by those teachings of wisdom which remind us that no human life, no sublunary good, can endure for ever.

Let us then be permitted to hope that this nation may now, at last, discharge its high ob ligation to that venerated family, by doing appropriate honors to the remains of this most illustrious man; so that, hereafter, the filial piety of no son or daughter of America may be agitated with the anxious fear, that some felonious hand may violate the sanctuary of his tomb, and give to a foreign land the glory of being the Mausoleum of WASHINGTON.