The first defense to any people is in the love of country. The nation is one great family, with one common interest, welfare, and destiny; a nation dwelling together in love must be a happy people. Kindness begets kindness, and love awakens love; this is that magic touch which makes the world of kin. A confederacy like ours can not be held together by the strong arm of a central government; if the band of unity is gone, such a union is no whit better than a rope of sand. The danger which besets us is not in individual sins which fasten on the body politic—we may labor with forbearance and firmness for their removal. Our danger lies in that spirit of selfishness and self-will which forgets brotherhood and God. In a nation like ours, with its countless differing interests of rival productions, its conflicts of trade and sectional rivalries of commerce, we must differ on questions of public policy; but it may be the manly difference of manly men. Never did men differ more widely than the fathers of the republic, never did earnest hearts battle with more zeal for their rival interests, nor contend more fiercely inch by inch in political struggles. Never did the rallying cry of parties take a deeper hold on its liege-men, or braver shouts of triumph herald in its victory. But there was a deeper love of country, which made the brotherhood of a nation, and a charity which more respected the opinions of those from whom they differ. The Christian patriot dare not close his eye to the evils which mar the nation; for their removal he will work and pray, but never with rash hand tear down the sacred edifice of the Constitution, because some stains deface its walls. The query may well arise whether we are not fast reaching the time when the question is not of the right or wrong of this or that legislation, the benefit of this or that public policy, but whether this or that party shall divide the spoils of office among their political camp followers. We hear of angry words and fierce invectives, of rumors of corruption, of bribery in public office; they belong to no one party, they are not ranked under any one leader; these things came because the people have lost sight, in the strifes of men for office, of that great destiny which God offers to Americans. I believe the love of country dwells in the people's hearts. The honest-hearted sons of toil will be true to the country and its constitution. That love may have slumbered for a time, but the great heart of the country will be true to itself. Its love can not be hedged in by the paling of any man's door-yard. It will sweep away every barrier of strife, and keep us one united people.
[BRITISH INFLUENCE.—John Randolph.]
Imputations of British influence have been uttered against the opponents of this war. Against whom are these charges brought? Against men who, in the war of the Revolution, were in the Councils of the Nation, or fighting the battles of your country! And by whom are these charges made? By runaways, chiefly from the British dominions, since the breaking out of the French troubles. The great autocrat of all the Russias receives the homage of our high consideration. The Dey of Algiers and his divan of pirates are very civil, good sort of people, with whom we find no difficulty in maintaining the relations of peace and amity. "Turks, Jews, and Infidels,"—Melimelli or the Little Turtle,—barbarians and savages of every clime and color, are welcome to our arms. With chiefs of banditti, negro or mulatto, we can treat and can trade. Name, however, but England, and all our antipathies are up in arms against her. Against whom? Against those whose blood runs in our veins; in common with whom we claim Shakspeare, and Newton, and Chatham, for our countrymen; whose form of government is the freest on earth, our own only excepted; from whom every valuable principle of our own institutions has been borrowed,—representation, jury trial, voting the supplies, writ of habeas corpus, our whole civil and criminal jurisprudence;—against our fellow-Protestants, identified in blood, in language, in religion, with ourselves.
In what school did the worthies of our land—the Washingtons, Henrys, Hancocks, Franklins, Rutledges, of America—learn those principles of civil liberty which were so nobly asserted by their wisdom and valor? American resistance to British usurpation has not been more warmly cherished by these great men and their compatriots,—not more by Washington, Hancock, and Henry,—than by Chatham, and his illustrious associates in the British Parliament. It ought to be remembered, too, that the heart of the English people was with us. It was a selfish and corrupt ministry, and their servile tools, to whom we were not more opposed than they were. I trust that none such may ever exist among us; for tools will never be wanting to subserve the purposes, however ruinous or wicked, of kings and ministers of state. I acknowledge the influence of a Shakspeare and a Milton upon my imagination; of a Locke, upon my understanding; of a Sidney, upon my political principles; of a Chatham, upon qualities which would to God I possessed in common with that illustrious man! of a Tillotson, a Sherlock, and a Porteus, upon my religion. This is a British influence which I can never shake off.
[DEFENSE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.—Henry Clay.]
Next to the notice which the opposition has found itself called upon to bestow upon the French emperor, a distinguished citizen of Virginia, formerly President of the United States, has never for a moment failed to receive their kindest and most respectful attention. An honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, of whom I am sorry to say, it becomes necessary for me, in the course of my remarks, to take some notice, has alluded to him in a remarkable manner. Neither his retirement from public office, his eminent services, nor his advanced age, can exempt this patriot from the coarse assaults of party malevolence. No, sir! In 1801, he snatched from the rude hand of usurpation the violated Constitution of his country,—and that is his crime. He preserved that instrument, in form, and substance, and spirit, a precious inheritance for generations to come,—and for this he can never be forgiven. How vain and impotent is party rage, directed against such a man! He is not more elevated by his lofty residence, upon the summit of his own favorite mountain, than he is lifted, by the serenity of his mind and the consciousness of a well-spent life, above the malignant passions and bitter feelings of the day. No! his own beloved Monticello is not less moved by the storms that beat against its sides, than is this illustrious man, by the howlings of the whole British pack, let loose from the Essex kennel! When the gentleman to whom I have been compelled to allude shall have mingled his dust with that of his abused ancestors,—when he shall have been consigned to oblivion, or, if he lives at all, shall live only in the treasonable annals of a certain junto,—the name of Jefferson will be hailed with gratitude, his memory honored and cherished as the second founder of the liberties of the people, and the period of his administration will be looked back to as one of the happiest and brightest epochs of American history!