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ernment; tumults, violations and a recurrence to first revolutionary principles: if they are submitted to, the consequences will be worse. After such manifest violation of the principles of our constitution, the form will not long be sacred; presently every vestige of it will be lost and swallowed up in the gulf of despotism. But should the evil proceed no further than the execution of the present law, what a fearful picture will our country present! The system of espionage thus established, the country will swarm with information spies, delators and all that odious tribe, that breed in the sunshine of despotic power, that suck the blood of the unfortunate, and creep into the bosom of sleeping innocence only to awaken it with a burning wound. The hours of the most unsuspecting confidence; the intimacies of friendship, or the recesses of domestic retirement, afford no security: the companion whom you must trust, the friend in whom you must confide, the domestic who waits in your chamber, are all tempted to betray your imprudence or guardless follies, to misrepresent your words, to convey them, distorted by calumny, to the secret tribunal where jealousy presides, where fear officiates as accuser, where suspicion is the only evidence that is heard.

These, bad as they are, are not the only ill consequences of these measures. Among them we may reckon the loss of wealth, of population and of commerce. Gentlemen, who support the bill, seemed to be aware of this, when yesterday they introduced a clause to secure the property of those who might be ordered to go off. They should have foreseen the consequences of the steps, which they have been taking: it is now too late to discover, that large sums are drawn from the banks, that a great capital is taken from commerce. It is ridiculous to observe the solicitude they show to retain the wealth of these dangerous men, whose persons they are so eager to get rid of. If they wish to retain it, it must be by giving them security to their persons, and assuring them that while

they respect the laws, the laws will protect them from arbitrary powers; it must be, in short, by rejecting the bill on your table. I might mention other inferior considerations: but I ought, sir, rather to entreat the pardon of the House, for having touched on this. Compared to the breach of our constitution, and the establishment of arbitrary power, every other topic is trifling; arguments of convenience sink into nothing; the preservation of wealth, the increase of commerce, however weighty on other occasions, here lose their importance, when the fundamental principles of freedom are in danger. I am tempted to borrow the impressive language of a foreign speaker, and exclaim-"Perish our commerce, let our constitution live;" perish our riches, let our freedom live. This, sir, would be the sentiment of every American, were the alternative between submission and wealth: but here, sir, it is proposed to destroy our wealth in order to ruin our commerce: not in order to preserve our constitution, but to break it-not to secure our freedom, but to abandon it.

I have now done, sir, but before I sit down, let me entreat gentlemen seriously to reflect, before they pronounce the decisive vote, that gives the first open stab to the principles of our government. Our mistaken zeal, like the patriarch of old, has bound one victim; it lies at the foot of the altar; a sacrifice of the first born offspring of freedom is proposed by those who gave it birth. The hand is already raised to strike, and nothing I fear, but the voice of heaven, can arrest the impious blow.

Let not gentlemen flatter themselves, that the fervor of the moment can make the people insensible to these aggressions. It is an honest, noble warmth, produced by an indignant sense of injury. It will never, I trust, be extinct, while there is a proper cause to excite it. But the people of America, sir, though watchful against foreign aggressions, are not careless of domestic encroachment; they are as jealous, sir, of their liberties at home, as of the power and prosperity of

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their country abroad; they will awake to a sense of their danger. Do not let us flatter ourselves, then, that these measures will be unobserved or disregarded : do not let us be told, sir, that we excite a fervor against foreign aggressions only to establish tyranny at home; that, like the arch traitor, we cry " Hail Columbia," at the moment we are betraying her to destruction; that we sing out," happy land," when we are plunging it in ruin and disgrace; and that we are absurd enough to call ourselves "free and enlightened," while we advocate principles, that would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity, and establish a code, compared to which the ordeal is wise, and the trial by battel is merciful and just.

SPEECH OF ROBERT G. HARPER.

ON THE

CONSTITUTIONAL POWERS OF THE PRESIDENT AND SENATE RELATIVE TO THE APPOINTMENT OF FOREIGN MINISTERS,

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 2, 1798.

An

A Resolution had been introduced, which, among other provisions, proposed to limit to forty thousand dollars, the annual appropriation" for the support of such persons, as the President should commission to serve the United States in foreign parts." amendment was brought forward, the object of which was to restrict the President in the exercise of the power of appointing Ministers Plenipotentiary. It proposed to limit the number of Ministers to two; viz. one at London, and one at Paris. The amendment was subsequently modified so as to allow one also at Madrid. In Committee of the whole, Mr. Harper spoke as follows:

It was my wish and my hope, Mr. Chairman, when this business was again called up some days ago, after an intermission of three weeks or more, that we should at length be permitted to come to a decision, without further debate, on a question which had so long occupied the attention of the House, and already perhaps exhausted the patience of the public. I and those, with whom I think on this occasion, were willing, for the sake of an early decision, to pass by unanswered many things, which though susceptible, in our opinion, of an easy refutation, were calculated to make an impression to our disadvantage. We were even content to leave unnoticed the violent philippic of the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Nicholas,) who intro

duced this motion, and who, in support of it, has allowed himself so great a latitude of invective against its opposers and their adherents. We therefore repeatedly called for the question, and did all in our power to close a debate, in which such immoderate use had already been made of the indulgence of the House.

But it did not so seem good to the gentleman from Pennsylvania. (Mr. Gallatin.) He yesterday pronounced a discourse of three hours and a half long, in which he repeated assertions formerly refuted, and made them the ground of a long train of reasoning; and advanced many new positions equally untenable, but equally capable, if left undetected and unexposed, of misleading the mind. These assertions, which the gentleman from Pennsylvania has not attempted to prove, though they are the ground-work of all his reasonings, were advanced with a boldness which nothing but a belief, that he was to remain unanswered, could have produced. His speech, when prepared in his closet, was evidently intended for a concluding speech; and hence he has laid down positions, which he knew to be unfounded, with a boldness of which even he himself has heretofore exhibited no example. On these positions he has built a gigantic structure of argument, to support the present motion; a structure which, like a vast edifice resting on loose blocks must fall and crumble in the dust, as soon as some person shall take the trouble to discover and knock away its frail and temporary props.

It is for this purpose that I now rise, once more to trespass on the indulgence of the committee. The loose blocks, which support this edifice, I mean to knock away; an operation which requires neither strength nor skill, which may be performed by any person who stands near enough to discover the defect: and then it will be seen, with what speedy ruin a structure so large, and appearing so solid, when viewed from a distance, will tumble to the earth.

[Here Mr. Harper made some observations, which.

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