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the victims. This day we undertake to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make; to the wretches that will be roasted at the stake; to our country; and I do not deem it too serious to say, to conscience and to God. We are answerable; and if duty be anything more than a word of imposture, if conscience be not a bugbear, we are preparing to make ourselves as wretched as our country.

There is no mistake in this case, there can be none; experience has already been the prophet of events, and the cries of our future victims have already reached us. The western inhabitants are not a silent and uncomplaining sacrifice. The voice of humanity issues from the shade of the wilderness; it exclaims, that while one hand is held up to reject this treaty, the other grasps the tomahawk. It summons our imagination to the scenes that will open. It is no great effort of the imagination to conceive that events so near are already begun. I can fancy that I listen to the yells of savage vengeance and the shrieks of torture; already they seem to sigh in the western wind; already they mingle with every echo from the mountains.

Ex. XCIV.-SHALI WE BREAK OUR FAITH?

Speech in Congress, April, 1796.

FISHER AMES.

It would be strange that a subject which has roused in turn all the passions of the country, should be discussed without the interference of any of our own. We are men, and therefore not exempt from those passions; as citizens and representatives, we feel the interest that must excite them. The hazard of great interest can not fail to agitate strong passions; we are not disinterested; it is impossible we should. be dispassionate. The warmth of such feelings may becloud the judgment, and, for a time, pervert the understanding. But the public sensibility and our own has sharpened the spirit of inquiry, and given animation to the debate. The public attention has been quickened to mark the progress of the discussion, and its judgment, often hasty and erroneous on first impressions, has become solid and enlightened at last.

Our result will, I hope, on that account be the safer and more mature, as well as more accordant with that of the nation. The only constant agents in political affairs are the passions of men. Shall we complain of our nature? Shall we say that man ought to have been made otherwise? It is right already, because He, from whom we derive our nature, ordained it so; and because, thus made and thus acting, the cause of truth and the public good is the more surely promoted.

The question is: SHALL WE BREAK THE TREATY ?

The treaty is bad, fatally bad, is the cry. It sacrifices the interest, the honor, the independence of the United States, and the faith of our engagements to France. If we listen to the clamor of party intemperance, the evils are of a number not to be counted, and of a nature not to be borne, even in idea. The language of passion and exaggeration may silence that of reason in other places; it has not done it here. The question here is, whether the treaty be really so very fatal as to oblige the nation to break its faith. I admit that such a treaty ought not to have been made. I admit that self-preservation is the first law of society, as well as of individuals. It would, perhaps, be deemed an abuse of terms to call that a treaty which violates such a principle. I content myself with pursuing the inquiry whether the nature of the compact be such as to justify our refusal to carry it into effect. A treaty is the promise of a nation. Now, promises do not always bind him who makes them.

The undecided point is, shall we break our faith? And while our country, and enlightened Europe, await the issue with more than curiosity, we are employed to gather, piecemeal, and article by article, from the instrument, a justification for the deed by trivial calculations of commercial profit and loss. No government, not even a despotism, will break its faith without some pretext; and it must be plausible—it must be such as will carry the public opinion along with it. Reasons of policy, if not of morality, dissuade even Turkey and Algiers from breaches of treaty in mere wantonness of perfidy, in open contempt of the reproaches of their subjects. Surely a popular government will not proceed more arbitrarily as it is more free, nor with less shame and scruple in proportion as it has better morals. It will not proceed against the faith of treaties at all unless the strong and decided sense of the nation shall pronounce, not simply that the treaty is not advantageous, but that it ought to be broken and annulled.

And who, I would inquire, is hardy enough to pretend that the public voice demands the violation of the treaty? The evidence of the sense of the great mass of the nation is often equivocal; but when was it ever manifested with more energy and precision than at the present moment? The voice of the people is raised against the measure of refusing the appropriations. If gentlemen should urge, nevertheless, that all the sound of alarm is a counterfeit expression of the sense of the public, I will proceed to other proofs. Is the treaty ruinous to our commerce? What has blinded the eyes of the merchants and traders? Surely they are not enemies to trade, nor ignorant of their own interests. Their sense is not so liable to be mistaken as that of a nation, and they are almost unanimous. The articles stipulating the redress of our injuries by captures on the sea, are said to be delusive. By whom is this said? The very men whose fortunes are staked upon the competency of that redress say no such thing. They wait with anxious fear, lest you should annul that compact on which all their hopes are rested.

Thus we offer proof, little short of absolute demonstration, that the voice of our country is raised, not to sanction, but to depreciate, the non-performance of our engagements. It is not the nation; it is one, and but one, branch of the government that proposes to reject them. With this aspect of things, to reject is an act of desperation.

Ex. XCV.-HAIL! COLUMBIA.

JOSEPH HOPKINSON.

HAIL! Columbia, happy land!

Hail! ye heroes, heav'n born band

Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause;
And when the storm of war was done

Enjoyed the peace your valor won.
Let Independence be our boast,
Ever mindful what it cost;
Ever grateful for the prize,
Let its altar reach the skies.
Firm united let us be;
Rallying round our liberty,

* Son of Francis Hopkinson, the Revolutionary Poet.

We now see the great end which they proposed to accomplish. It was to frame, for the consideration of their constituents, our federal and national constitution-a constitution that would produce the advantages of good, and prevent the inconveniences of bad government-a constitution whose beneficent energy would pervade the whole Union, and bind and embrace the interests of every part-a constitution that would ensure peace, freedom, and happiness to the States and people of America.

Ex. LXXXIV.-THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

Speech in Convention, 1787.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.*

SIR: I agree to this constitution with all its faults,—if they are such, because I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, further, this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. I doubt, too, whether any other Convention we can obtain may be able to make a better constitution. For, when you assemble a number of men, to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish vices. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected? It, therefore, astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does, and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are awaiting with confidence to hear that

*It must have been an affecting sight to see the philosopher and statesman, at the age of eighty-one years, still taking an active part in the councils of the nation, and always lending his voice and influence to the side of conciliation and liberality. His aim was to harmonize conflicting opinions, and to be satisfied with the best result that could be attained, on the whole, confident that it was impossible ever to bring a large body of men into perfect unanimity. He lived to see the new system of government in successful operation, and died in 1790, the second year of Washington's presidency.

THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

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our counsels are confounded, like those of the builders of Babel, and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats.

Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that this is not the best. The opinion I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us, in returning to his constituents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign nations, as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity.

Much of the strength and efficacy of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the people, depends on opinion, on the general opinion of the goodness of that government, as well as of the wisdom and integrity of its governors. I hope, therefore, that for our own sakes, as a part of the people, and for the sake of our posterity, we shall act heartily and unanimously in recommending this constitution, wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well administered.

Ex. LXXXV -THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION.

Speech in Convention, June, 1788.

EDMUND RANDOLPH.*

LET us consider the definition of a republican government, as laid down by a highly esteemed political philoso

*This debate between Randolph and Patrick Henry did not take place at the time of framing the Constitution, but in the following year, when a Convention was held in Virginia, (as in the other states,) for the purpose of ratifying it. Mr. Randolph had voted against the Constitution in the original Convention, but yielded his opinion in deference to what he believed to be the public good. He was afterwards Governor of Virginia, Attorney-General of the United States, and Secretary of State.