REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH.
(FROM SPEECH IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 1834.)
IR, I am growing old. I have had some little measure of experience in public life, and the result of that experience has brought me to this conclusion, that when business, of whatever nature, is to be transacted in a deliberate assembly, or in private life, courtesy, forbearance, and moderation, are best calculated to bring it to a successful conclusion. Sir, my age admonishes me to abstain from involving myself in personal difficulties; would to God that I could say, I am also restrained by higher motives. I certainly never sought any collision with the gentleman from Virginia. My situation at this time is peculiar, if it be nothing else, and might, I should think, dissuade, at least, a generous heart from any wish to draw me into circumstances of personal altercation. I have experienced this magnanimity from some quarters of the House. But I regret that from others it appears to have no such consideration.
The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say that in one point, at least, he coincided with me—in an humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements. I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects; but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my fault. But, however, I regret my want of ability to furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his argument. It is not a few abstractions engrossed on parchment, that make free governments. No, sir; the law of liberty must be inscribed on the heart of the citizen: THE WORD, if I must use the expression without irreverence, MUST BECOME FLESH. You must have a whole people trained, disciplined, bred,—yea, and born,—as our fathers were, to institutions like ours.
Before the Colonies existed, the Petition of Rights, that Magna Charta of a more enlightened age, had been presented, in 1628, by Lord Coke and his immortal compeers. Our founders brought it with them, and we have not gone one step beyond them. They brought these maxims of civil liberty, not in their libraries, but in their souls; not as philosophical prattle, not as barren generalities, but as rules of conduct; as a symbol of public duty and private right, to be adhered to with religious fidelity; and the very first pilgrim that set his foot upon the rock of Plymouth stepped forth a LIVING CONSTITUTION, armed at all points to defend and to perpetuate the liberty to which he had devoted his whole being.
ON RECOGNIZING THE INDEPENDENCE OF GREECE, 1824.
