cherish it with the most grateful recollection, and look back upon it with proud satisfaction.

I should be glad to feel that I could with any propriety abstain from any allusion at this time and at this place, to public affairs. But considering the occasion which has brought us together, the events which have preceded it, and the influence which they may exert upon the destinies of our country, my silence might be misinterpreted, and I think it therefore proper that I should embrace this first public opportunity which I have had of saying a few words, since the termination of the late memorable and embittered contest. It is far from my wish to continue or to revive the agitation with which that contest was attended. It is ended, for good or for evil. The nation wants repose. A majority of the people has decided, and from their decision there can and ought to be no appeal. Bowing, as I do, with profound respect to them, and to this exercise of their sovereign authority, I may nevertheless be allowed to retain and to express my own unchanged sentiments, even if they should not be in perfect coincidence with theirs. It is a source of high gratification to me to believe that I share these sentiments in common with more than half a million of freemen, possessing a degree of virtue, of intelligence, of religion, and of genuine patriotism, which, without disparagement to others, is unsurpassed, in the same number of men in this or any other country, in this or any other age.

I deprecated the election of the present President of the United States, because I believed he had neither the temper, the experience, nor the attainments requisite to discharge the complicated and arduous duties of chief magistrate. I deprecated it still more, because his elevation, I believed, would be the result exclusively of admiration and gratitude for military service, without regard to indispensable civil qualifications. I can neither retract, nor alter, nor modify any opinion which, on these subjects, I have at any time heretofore expressed. I thought I beheld in his election an awful foreboding of the fate which, at some future (I pray to God that, if it ever arrive, it may be some far distant) day was to befall this infant republic. All past history has impressed on my mind this solemn apprehension. Nor is it effaced or weakened by contemporaneous events passing upon our own favored continent. It is remarkable that, at this epoch, at the head of eight of the nine independent governments

established in both Americas, military officers have been placed, or have placed themselves. General Lavalle has, by military force, aubverted the republic of La Plata. General Santa Cruz is the chief magistrate of Bolivia; Colonel Pinto of Chili; General Lamar of Peru, and General Bolivar of Colombia. Central America, rent in pieces, and bleeding at every pore from wounds inflicted by contending military factions, is under the alternate sway of their chiefs. In the government of our nearest neighbor, an election, conducted according to all the requirements of their constitution, has terminated with a majority of the States in favor of Pedrazza, the civil candidate. An insurrection was raised in behalf of his military rival; the cry, not exactly of a bargain, but of corruption, was sounded; the election was annulled, and a reform effected by proclaiming General Guerrero, having only a minority of the States, duly elected President. The thunders from the surrounding forts, and the acclamations of the assembled multitude, on the fourth, told us what general was at the head of our affairs. It is true, and in this respect we are happier than some of the Americean States, that his election has not been brought about by military violence. The forms of the constitution have yet remained inviolate.

In re-asserting the opinions which I hold, nothing is further from my purpose than to treat with the slightest disrespect those of my fellow-citizens here or elsewhere, who may entertain opposite sentiments. The fact of claiming and exercising the free and independent expression of the dictates of my own deliberate judgment, affords the strongest guarantee of my full recognition of their corresponding privilege.

A majority of my fellow-citizens, it would seem, do not perceive the dangers which I apprehended from the example. Believing that they are not real, or that we have some security against their effect, which ancient and modern republics have not found, that majority, in the exercise of their incontestible right of suffrage, have chosen for chief magistrate a citizen who brings into that high trust no qualification other than military triumphs.

That citizen has done much injustice-wanton, unprovoked, and unatoned injustice. It was inflicted, as I must ever believe, for the double purpose of gratifying private resentment and promoting per

sonal ambition. When, during the late canvas, he came forward in the public prints under his proper name, with his charge against me, and summoned before the public tribunal his friend and his only witness to establish it, the anxious attention of the whole American people was directed to the testimony which that witness might render. He promptly obeyed the call and testified to what he knew. He could say nothing, and he said nothing, which cast the slightest shade upon my honor or integrity. What he did say was the reverse of any implication of me. Then all just and impartial men, and all who had faith in the magnanimity of my accuser, believed that he would voluntarily make a public acknowledgement of his error. How far this reasonable expectation has been fulfilled, let his persevering and stubborn silence attest. But my relations to that citizen by a recent event are now changed. He is the chief magistrate of my country, invested with large and extensive powers, the administration of which may conduce to its prosperity or occasion its adversity. Patriotism enjoins as a duty, that whilst he is in that exalted station, he should be treated with decorum, and his official acts be judged of in a spirit of candor. Suppressing, as far as I can, a sense of my personal wrong-willing even to forgive him, if his own conscience and our common God can acquit him—and entertaining for the majority which has elected him, and for the office which he fills, all the deference which is due from a private citizen, I most anxiously hope that under his guidance the great interests of our country, foreign and domestic, may be upheld, our free institutions be unimpaired, and the happiness of the nation be continued and increased.

While I am prompted by an ardent devotion to the welfare of my country, sincerely to express this hope, I make no pledges, no promises, no threats, and I must add, I have no confidence. My public life, I trust, furnishes the best guarantee for my faithful adherence to those great principles of external and internal policy, to which it has been hitherto zealously dedicated. Whether I shall ever hereafter take any part in the public councils or not, depends upon circumstances beyond my control. Holding the principle that a citizen, as long as a single pulsation remains, is under an obligation to exert his utmost energies in the service of his country, if necessary, whether in private or public station, my friends here and everywhere may rest assured that, in either condition, I shall stand erect, with a spirit unconquered, whilst life endures, ready to second their

exertions in the cause of liberty, the union, and the national prosperity.

Before I set down I avail myself with pleasure of this opportunity to make my grateful acknowledgments for the courtesies and friendly attentions which I have uniformly experienced from the inhabitants of this city. A free and social intercourse with them, during a period of more than twenty years, is about to terminate, without any recollection on my part of a single painful collision, and without leaving behind me, as far as I know, a solitary personal enemy. If, in the sentiment with which I am about to conclude, I do not give a particular expression to the feelings inspired by the interchange of civilities and friendly offices, I hope the citizens of Washington will be assured that their individual happiness and the growth and prosperity of this city will ever be objects of my fervent wishes. In the sentiment which I shall presently offer, they are indeed comprehended. For the welfare of this city is indissolubly associated with that of our Union, and the preservation of our liberty. I request permission to propose,

LET US NEVER DESPAIR OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.)