But if, instead of freedom, slavery is to prevail and spread, as we extend our dominion, can any reflecting man fail to see the necessity of giving to the General Government greater powers, to enable it to afford the protection that will be demanded of it? powers that will be difficult to control, and which may prove fatal to the public liberties.
As I am not a very frequent speaker in this assembly, and have shown a desire, I trust, rather to listen to the wisdom of others than to lay claim to superior knowledge by undertaking to advise, even when advice, by being seasonable in point of time, might have some chance of being profitable, you will, perhaps, bear with me if I venture to trouble you once more on that eternal subject which has lingered here, until all its natural interest is exhausted, and every topic connected with it is literally worn to tatters. I shall, I assure you, sir, speak with laudable brevity--not merely on account of the feeble state of my health, and from some reverence for the laws of good taste which forbid me to speak otherwise, but also from a sense of justice to those who honor me with their attention. My single purpose, as I suggested yesterday, is to subject to a friendly, yet close examination, some portions of a speech, imposing, certainly, on account of the distinguished quarter from whence it came--not very imposing (if I may so say, without departing from that respect which I sincerely feel and intend to manifest for eminent abilities and long experience) for any other reason.
I confess to you, nevertheless, that some of the principles announced by the honorable gentleman from New York, with an explicitness that reflected the highest credit on his candor, did, when they were first presented, startle me not a little. They were not perhaps entirely new. Perhaps I had seen them before in some shadowy and doubtful shape,
"If shape it might be called, that shape had none, Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb?"
But in the honorable gentleman's speech they were shadowy and doubtful no longer. He exhibited them in forms so boldly and accurately--with contours so distinctly traced--with features so pronounced and striking that I was unconscious for a moment that they might be old acquaintances. I received them as a _novi hospites_ within these walls, and gazed upon them with astonishment and alarm. I have recovered, however, thank God, from this paroxysm of terror, although not from that of astonishment. I have sought and found tranquillity and courage in my former consolatory faith. My reliance is that these principles will obtain no general currency; for, if they should, it requires no gloomy imagination to sadden the perspective of the future. My reliance is upon the unsophisticated good sense and noble spirit of the American people. I have what I may be allowed to call a proud and patriotic trust, that they will give countenance to no principles which, if followed out to their obvious consequences, will not only shake the goodly fabric of the Union to its foundations, but reduce it to a melancholy ruin. The people of this country, if I do not wholly mistake their character, are wise as well as virtuous. They know the value of that federal association which is to them the single pledge and guarantee of power and peace. Their warm and pious affections will cling to it as to their only hope of prosperity and happiness, in defiance of pernicious abstractions, by whomsoever inculcated, or howsoever seductive or alluring in their aspect.'