settled and established states, more rapidly than | ble to the experiment can ever be expected to could have been reasonably anticipated. They occur. The last hopes of mankind, therefore, already furnish an exhilarating example of the rest with us; and if it should be proclaimed, difference between free governments and des- that our example had become an argument potic misrule. Their commerce, at this moment, against the experiment, the knell of popular creates a new activity in all the great marts of liberty would be sounded throughout the earth. the world. They show themselves able, by an exchange of commodities, to bear an useful part in the intercourse of nations.

A new spirit of enterprise and industry begins to prevail; all the great interests of society ceive a salutary impulse; and the progress of information not only testifies to an improved condition, but constitutes itself the highest and most essential improvement.

These are excitements to duty; but they are not suggestions of doubt. Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us, and all that surrounds us, authorize the belief, that popular re-governments, though subject to occasional variations, perhaps not always for the better, in form, may yet, in their general character, be as durable and permanent as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country, any other is impossible. The principle of free governments adheres to the American soil. It is bedded in it; immovable as its mountains.

When the battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the existence of South America was scarcely felt in the civilized world. The thirteen little colonies of North America habitually called And let the sacred obligations which have themselves the "continent." Borne down by devolved on this generation, and on us, sink colonial subjugation, monopoly and bigotry, deep into our hearts. Those are daily dropping these vast regions of the South were hardly from among us, who established our liberty and visible above the horizon. But in our day there our government. The great trust now descends hath been, as it were, a new creation. The to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that southern hemisphere emerges from the sea. Its which is presented to us, as our appropriate oblofty mountains begin to lift themselves into the ject. We can win no laurels in a war for indelight of heaven; its broad and fertile plains pendence. Earlier and worthier hands have stretch out, in beauty, to the eye of civilized gathered them all. Nor are there places for us man, and at the mighty bidding of the voice of by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other political liberty the waters of darkness retire. founders of States. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defence and preservation; and there is opened to us, also, a noble pursuit, to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us. Our proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of peace, let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered. Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great obWe are not propagandists. Wherever other jects, which our condition points out to us, let systems are preferred, either as being thought us act under a settled conviction, and an habitbetter in themselves, or as better suited to ex-ual feeling, that these twenty-four states "one isting condition, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto proves, however, that the popular form is practicable, and that with wisdom and knowledge men may govern themselves; and the duty incumbent on us is, to preserve the consistency of this cheering example, and take care that nothing may weaken its authority with the world. If, in our case, the representative system ultimately fail, popular governments must be pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances more favora

And now, let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction of the benefit, which the example of our country has produced, and is likely to produce, on human freedom and human happiness. And let us endeavor to comprehend, in all its magnitude, and to feel, in all its importance, the part assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We are placed at the head of the system of representative and popular governments. Thus far our example shows, that such governments are compatible, not only with respectability and power, but with repose, with peace, with security of personal rights, with good laws, and a just administration.

country. Let our conceptions be enlaced to the circle of our duties. Let us exter o ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be, our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration, forever!

VOL. II.-24

1

SPEECH ON MR. FOOT'S RESOLUTION.

MR. PRESIDENT,-When the mariner has been tossed for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution.

The Secretary read the resolution, as follows: แ "Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold with- | in each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit, for a certain period, the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price. And, also, whether the office of surveyor-general, and some of the land offices, may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest; or whether it be expedient to adopt measures to hasten the sales, and extend more rapidly the surveys of the public lands."

might stand out of the way, or prepare ourselves to fall before it, and die with decency, and with expectation awakened by the tone has now been received. Under all advantages, which preceded it, it has been discharged, and has spent its force. It may become me to say no more of its effect, than that, if nobody is found, after all, either killed or wounded by it, it is not the first time, in the history of human affairs, that the vigor and success of the war have not quite come up to the lofty and sound ing phrase of the manifesto.

The gentleman, sir, in declining to postpone the debate, told the Senate, with the emphasis of his hand upon his heart, that there was something rankling here, which he wished to relieve. [Mr. HAYNE rose, and disclaimed having used the word rankling.] It would not, Mr. President, be safe for the honorable member to appeal to those around him upon the question, whether he did, in fact, make use of that word. But he may have been unconscious of it. At any rate, it is enough that he disclaims it. But still, with or without the use of that particular word, he had yet something here, he said, of which he wished to rid himself by an immediate reply. In this respect, sir, I have a great advantage over the honorable gentleman. There is nothing here, sir, which gives me the slightest uneasiness; neither fear, nor anger, nor that which is sometimes more troublesome than either-the consciousness of having been in the wrong. There is nothing, either originating We have thus heard, sir, what the resolution here, or now received here by the gentleman's is, which is actually before us for consideration; shot. Nothing original, for I had not the slightand it will readily occur to every one that it is est feeling of disrespect or unkindness towards almost the only subject about which something the honorable member. Some passages, it is has not been said in the speech, running through true, had occurred since our acquaintance in two days, by which the Senate has been now this body, which I could have wished might entertained by the gentleman from South Caro-have been otherwise; but I had used philosolina. Every topic in the wide range of our public affairs, whether past or present-every thing, general or local, whether belonging to national politics, or party politics, seems to have attracted more or less of the honorable member's attention, save only the resolution before the Senate. He has spoken of every thing but the public lands. They have escaped his notice. To that subject, in all his excursions, he has not paid even the cold respect of a passing glance.

When this debate, sir, was to be resumed on Thursday morning, it so happened that it would have been convenient for me to be elsewhere. The honorable member, however, did not incline to put off the discussion to another day. He had a shot, he said, to return, and he wished to discharge it. That shot, sir, which it was kind thus to inform us was coming, that we

*See the Speech of Mr. Hayne, in the subsequent pages

of this volume.

phy and forgotten them. When the honorable member rose, in his first speech, I paid him the respect of attentive listening; and when he sat down, though surprised, and, I must say, even astonished, at some of his opinions, nothing was farther from my intention than to commence any personal warfare: and through the whole of the few remarks I made in answer, I avoided, studiously and carefully, every thing which I thought possible to be construed into disrepect. And, sir, while there is thus nothing originating here, which I wished at any time, or now wish to discharge, I must repeat, also, that nothing has been received here which rankles, or in any way gives me annoyance. I will not accuse the honorable member of violating the rules of civilized war,-I will not say that he poisoned his arrows. But whether his shafts were, or were not, dipped in that which would have caused rankling, if they had reached, there was not, as it happened, quite strength enough in the bow to bring them to their mark. If he

wishes now to gather up those shafts, he must | themselves. But the tone and manner of the look for them elsewhere; they will not be found fixed and quivering in the object at which they were aimed.

gentleman's question forbid me that I thus interpret it. I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the loftiness of asserted superiority, which does not allow me to pass over it without notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and so put, as if it were difficult for me to answer, Whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraordinary language, and an extraordinary tone, for the discussions of this body.

The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. I must have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member sat down, his friend from Missouri rose, and, with much honeyed commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this excellent good feeling? Matches and overmatches! Those terms are Must I not have been absolutely malicious, if I more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter could have thrust myself forward to destroy for other assemblies than this.-Sir, the gentlesensations, thus pleasing? Was it not much man seems to forget where and what we are. better and kinder, both to sleep upon them my-This is a Senate; a Senate of equals: of men of self, and to allow others also the pleasure of individual honor and personal character, and sleeping upon them? But if it be meant, by of absolute independence. We know no massleeping upon his speech, that I took time to ters: we acknowledge no dictators. This is a prepare a reply to it, it is quite a mistake; hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not owing to other engagements, I could not employ an arena for the exhibition of champions. I even the interval between the adjournment of offer myself, sir, as a match for no man; I throw the Senate and its meeting the next morning, in the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But attention to the subject of this debate. Never- then, sir, since the honorable member has put theless, sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubt- the question in a manner that calls for an anedly true-I did sleep on the gentleman's swer, I will give him an answer; and I tell speech; and slept soundly. And I slept equally him that, holding myself to be the humblest of well on his speech of yesterday, to which I am the members here, I yet know nothing in the now replying. It is quite possible that in this arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone, or respect, also, I possess some advantage over the when aided by the arm of his friend from South honorable member, attributable, doubtless, to a Carolina, that need deter even me from espouscooler temperament on my part; for, in truth, ing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well. from debating whenever I may choose to deBut the gentleman inquires why he was made bate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit the object of such a reply? Why was he singled to say, on the floor of the Senate. Sir, when out? If an attack has been made on the east, uttered as matter of commendation or complihe, he assures us, did not begin it-it was the ment, I should dissent from nothing which the gentleman from Missouri. Sir, I answered the honorable member might say of his friend. gentleman's speech because I happened to hear Still less do I put forth any pretensions of my it: and because, also, I chose to give an answer own. But, when put to me as matter of taunt, to that speech which, if unanswered, I thought I throw it back, and say to the gentleman that most likely to produce injurious impressions. I he could possibly say nothing less likely than did not stop to inquire who was the original such a comparison to wound my pride of perdrawer of the bill. I found a responsible en-sonal character. The anger of its tone rescued dorser before me, and it was my purpose to hold the remark from intentional irony, which otherhim liable, and to bring him to his just respon-wise probably would have been its general acsibility without delay. But, sir, this interrogatory of the honorable member was only introductory to another. He proceeded to ask me whether I had turned upon him, in this debate, from the consciousness that I should find an overmatch, if I ventured on a contest with his friend from Missouri. If, sir, the honorable member, ex gratia modestia, had chosen thus to defer to his friend, and to pay him a compliment, without intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional, or more serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from

ceptation. But, sir, if it be imagined that by this mutual quotation and commendation; if it be supposed that, by casting the characters of the drama, assigning to each his part; to one the attack, to another the cry of onset; or if it be thought that by a loud and empty vaunt of anticipated victory any laurels are to be won here; if it be imagined, especially, that any or all these things will shake any purpose of mine, I can tell the honorable member, once for all, that he is greatly mistaken, and that he is dealing with one of whose temper and character he has yet much to learn. Sir, I shall not allow myself on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to be betrayed into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the honorable mem

ber may perhaps find that, in that contest, there | guilty, and the conscience smitten, and none will be blows to take as well as blows to give; others, to start, with, that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own; and that his impunity may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his re

sources.

"Pr'ythee, see there! behold!-look! lo! If I stand here, I saw him!" their eyeballs were seared (was it not so sir?) who had thought to shield themselves, by concealing their own hand, and laying the imputation of the crime on a low and hireling agency in wickedness; who had vainly attempted to stifle the workings of their own coward consciences, by ejaculating, through white lips and chattering teeth, "Thou canst not say I did it!" have misread the great poet if those who had no way partaken in the deed of the death, either found that they were, or feared that they should be, pushed from their stools by the ghost of the slain, or exclaimed, to a spectre created by their own fears, and their own remorse, "Avaunt! and quit our sight!"

But, sir, the coalition! The coalition! Ay, "the murdered coalition! " The gentleman asks, if I were led or frightened into this debate by the spectre of the coalition-" Was it the ghost of the murdered coalition," he exclaims, "which haunted the member from Massachu│I setts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?" "The murdered coalition!' Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand calumnies with which the press teemed during an excited political canvass. It was a charge of which there was not only no proof or probability, but which was, in itself, wholly impossible to be true. No man of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was of that class of falsehoods, which, by continued repetition, through all the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading those who are already far misled, and of further fanning passion, already kindling into flame. Doubtless it served in its day, and in greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having done that it has sunk into the general mass of stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very cast off slough of a polluted and shameless press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the honorable member to Sir, I need pursue the allusion no farther. give it dignity or decency, by attempting to I leave the honorable gentleman to run it out elevate it, and to introduce it into the Senate. at his leisure, and to derive from it all the gratHe cannot change it from what it is, an objectification it is calculated to administer. If he of general disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, down, to the place

where it lies itself.

But, sir, the honorable member was not, for other reasons, entirely happy in his allusion to the story of Banquo's murder, and Banquo's ghost. It was not, I think, the friends, but the enemies of the murdered Banquo, at whose bidding his spirit would not down. The honorable gentlemen is fresh in his reading of the English classics, and can put me right if I am wrong; but, according to my poor recollection it was at those who had begun with caresses, and ended with foul and treacherous murder, that the gory locks were shaken! The ghost of Banquo, like that of Hamlet, was an honest ghost. It disturbed no innocent man. It knew where its appearance would strike terror, and who would cry out, a ghost! It made itself visible in the right quarter, and compelled the

There is another particular, sir, in which the honorable member's quick perception of resemblances might, I should think, have seen something in the story of Banquo, making it not altogether a subject of the most pleasant contemplation. Those who murdered Banquo, what did they win by it?-Substantial good? Permanent power? Or disappointment, rather, and sore mortification;-dust and ashes-the common fate of vaulting ambition, overleaping itself? Did not evenhanded justice ere long commend the poisoned chalice to their own lips? Did they not soon find that for another they had "filed their mind?" that their ambition, though apparently for the moment successful, had but put a barren sceptre in their grasp?Ay, sir,

"A barren sceptre in their gripe,

Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand,
No son of their's succeeding."

finds himself pleased with the associations, and prepared to be quite satisfied, though the parallel should be entirely completed, I had almost said, I am satisfied also-but that I shall think of. Yes, sir, I will think of that.

In the course of my observations the other day, Mr. President, I paid a passing tribute of respect to a very worthy man, Mr. Dane of Massachusetts. It so happened that he drew the ordinance of 1787, for the government of the northwestern territory. A man of so much ability, and so little pretence; of so great a capacity to do good, and so unmixed a disposition to do it for its own sake; a gentleman who had acted an important part forty years ago, in a measure the influence of which is still deeply felt in the very matter which was the subject of debate, might, I thought, receive from me a commendatory recognition.

But the honorable member was inclined to be facetious on the subject. He was rather dis