now stand, the Executive is forced to obtain support to his measures by addressing the understanding of the people. That necessity is fatal. He is of course overthrown. I pity him. What a spectacle! He is expected by his adherents to wield the weapons of his predecessor-he can not lift them! He is expected to wear his armor-the helmet alone enveloped him! And he staggers along-too insignificant for a magnanimous enemy's hostility-to the close of the most imbecile Administration which an American citizen has ever been required to acknowledge. Yes, the check that the Administration has sustained has overthrown it. The exertions of the late session of Congress have largely contributed to the certainty of its overthrow. It has been smitten. The Hydra has been throttled against the walls of the Capitol. The people stand ready, ready-with searing irons in hand-to burn out the very inmost roots of the monster! The work is done!

If the occasion allowed it, I should like to say something of old Massachusetts. I should like to rekindle my own patriotism at her altars. Here on this very spot-in this very hall-the sacred flame of revolutionary liberty first ascended. Here it has ever ascended. It has never been smothered-never dimmed. Perpetual-clear-holy! Behold its inspirations here in your midst! Where are the doctrines of the Union and the Constitution so incessantly inculcated as here? Where are those doctrines so enthusiastically adopted as here? The principles of the Union and the Constitution-for us another name for the principles of a liberty which can not survive their overthrow-will, in after ages, trace with delight their lineage through you. The blood of freedom is here pure. To be allied to it is to be ennobled. Massachusetts! Which of her multitude of virtues shall I commend! How can I discriminate! I will not

attempt it. I take her as she is and all together-I give-Old Massachusetts! God bless her!

From Boston, Menefee returned to Kentucky, where he spent the remainder of the summer and autumn recuperating.

CHAPTER VII

IN CONGRESS (CONCLUDED)

On Monday, December 3, 1838, the Senate was called to order by Hon. William R. King, of Alabama, President pro tempore, and the House was called to order by Speaker James K. Polk of Tennessee.

Menefee began his last term in the House, as he had begun his first and second terms, by presenting a memorial or petition. Five of the other Kentucky Representatives did the same.

On December 28, 1838, Harry A. Wise, of Virginia, offered a motion to print twenty thousand copies extra of documents numbers 111 and 297 of the second session of the 25th Congress. These documents dealt with public defaulters. Edward Curtis of New York asked Wise to modify his motion to include ten thousand extra copies of the Secretary of the Treasury's report in relation to the defalcation of Mr. Swartwood. Wise modified. Wise modified. John O. DeGroff, also of New York, suggested twenty thousand copies of this latter document, and Wise agreed. C. C. Cumbreling, of the same State, presumed that Wise wished to have the documents consist of five or six hundred pages, which he thought it was very doubtful whether any one would read. He hoped that they would be printed separately and again Wise agreed. Mr. Garland of Virginia had offered a proposition asking that the Secretary of the Treasury report to the House the defalcation of collect

ors and receivers of the public money that had occurred since October 1, 1837, the names of the defaulters, when and where they took place and what amount had been stolen.

Wise accepted this modification and further modified Garland's motion by requesting that the Secretary of the Treasury report to the House all the correspondence touching the defalcations of receivers and collectors of public money since the Department furnished document 297. Evidently the gentleman from Virginia was in a modifying mood on that day. Menefee arose and delivered the following speech, which is given in the Globe. S. S. Prentiss's reply to Menefee is so fine that it is also given here.

On Motion to Reprint Documents (111 & 297) in Relation to Public Defaulters. (December 28th, 1838.)

Mr. Speaker:

I am happy to witness such scenes as this in the House of Representatives. I can perceive a feverish anxiety in the party in power, which indicates that after all the enormities that have come to light, there are other and greater still behind.

Hence the anxiety to stifle debate, and quench the light which was beginning to be shed on dark transactions long hidden from the public eye. After the proof has come of iniquity after iniquity, which had been plunged like avalanches from the heights of power into the pure lake of our republican institutions, now that liberty is looking to this House for help, now comes a solemn tirade in the Globe against wasting time in this most villainous debate, and an appeal to the liege subjects of the throne at once to put a stop to it; and, while such intimation came from the offi

cial organ, simultaneously there was an effort in the House to smother documentary light. It is vain to hope for longer concealment; the deeds of the party are rushing to the light with the resistless force of destiny. The petty excuses of economy will not answer the purpose; they have lost their charm; the public begin too well to understand the economy of the Administration. It might as well, at once, with arms crossed and hearts resigned, come up to that bar where the American people will pass on its deeds and award their due recompense. That people will embody the iniquities of ten long years, and, placing them on the heads of the victims, will stretch the sacrificial knife, and, calling on Heaven, will make one great expiatory offering to the God of Liberty.

I deny that the documents give a false statement in relation to defaulters; they only stated what appeared on the record; this is all they professed to do, and this is all they did. These commencing groans of detected guilt were as nothing; they were mere whispers, yea, sweet sounds, in comparison to the outcries of national agony that will soon fill the air as the whole truth. comes to view. Come it must. Let it affect this party or that party, things have reached a point at which concealment is any longer hopeless. Whether these defaults are or are not an argument against the subTreasury-let them be even the strongest argument in its favor-still the people must have the truth. The truth will go like a two-edged sword; error must get out of the way, or be cut in twain. Away with this pitiful talk about the expense of printing a document! Let the people be no longer insulted by an open attempt to stifle the light and hide the truth from them. Have it they will, and have it all.

Mr. Speaker:

PRENTISS'S REPLY

I am as well pleased as the gentleman (Menefee) who has just taken his seat at witnessing the sensa