Either the offences described in the act are crimes, or they are not. If they are, then all the humane provisions of the constitution forbid this mode of punishing, or preventing them, equally as relates to aliens and citizens. If they are not crimes, the citizen has no more safety by the constitution, than the alien; for all these provisions apply only to crimes; so that, in either event, the citizen has the same reason to expect a similar law to the one now before you, which will subject his person to the uncontrolled despotism of a single man. You have already been told of plots and conspiracies; and all the frightful images, that are necessary to keep up the present system of terror and alarm, have been presented to you; but who are implicated by these dark hints-these mysterious allusions? They are our own citizens, sir, not aliens. If there is any necessity for the system now proposed, it is more necessary to be enforced against our own citizens, than against strangers; and I have no doubt, that either in this or some other shape, this will be attempted. I now ask, sir, whether the people of America are prepared for this; whether they are willing to part with all the means which the wisdom of their ancestors discovered; and their own caution so lately adopted to secure their own persons; whether they are willing to submit to imprisonment, or exile, whenever suspicion, calumny, or vengeance, shall mark them for ruin. Are they base enough to be prepared for this? No, sir, they will, I repeat it, they will resist this tyrannical system; the people will oppose, the states will not submit to its operations; they ought not to acquiesce, and I pray to God they never may. My opinions, sir, on this subject, are explicit, and I wish they may be known; they are, that whenever our laws manifestly infringe the constitution under which they were made, the people ought not to hesitate which they should obey: if we exceed our powers, we become tyrants, and our acts have no effect. Thus, sir, one of the first effects of measures such as this, if they be acquiesced in, will be disaffection among the states, and opposition among the people to your government; 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 farther 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. R 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 betweer 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 firstborn 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 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. The bill became a law on the 25th June, 1798. SPEECH OF GOVERNEUR MORRIS, ON THE JUDICIARY ACT, DELIVERED IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, On the following notion, "Resolved, That the act of congress, passed on the 13th day of February, 1801, entitled 'An Act to provide for the more convenient organization of the courts of the United States, ought to be repealed." MR. PRESIDENT, I had fostered the hope that some gentleman, who thinks with me, would have taken upon himself the task of replying to the observations made yesterday, and this morning, in favor of the motion on your table. But since no gentleman has gone so fully into the subject as it seems to require, I am compelled to request your attention. We were told, yesterday, by the honorable member from Virginia, that our objections were calculated for the by-standers, and made with a view to produce effect upon the people at large. I know not for whom this charge is intended. I certainly recollect no such observations. As I was personally charged with making But surea play upon words, it may have been intended for me. ly, sir, it will be recollected that I declined that paltry game, and declared that I considered the verbal criticism which had been If I can recollect what I said, from relied on as irrelevant. recollecting well what I thought and meant to say, sure I am, that I uttered nothing in the style of an appeal to the people. I hope no member of this house has so poor a sense of its dignity as to make such an appeal. As to myself, it is now near thirty years since I was called into public office. During that period, I have frequently been the servant of the people, always their friend; but at no one moment of my life their flatterer, and God forbid that I ever should be. When the honorable gentleman considers the course we have taken, he must see, that the observation he nas thus pointed can light on no object. I trust that it did not flow from the consciousness of his own intentions. He, I hope, had no view of this sort. If he had, he was much, very much. mistaken. Had he looked round upon those who honor us with their attendance, he would have seen that the splendid flashes of his wit excited no approbatory smile. The countenances of those by whom we were surrounded presented a different spectacle. They were impressed with the dignity of this house: they perceived in it the dignity of the American people, and felt, with high and manly sentiment, their own participation. We have been told, sir, by the honorable gentleman from Virginia, that there is no independent part of this government; that, in popular governments, the force of every department, as well as the government itself, must depend upon popular opinion. The honorable member from North Carolina has informed us, that there is no check for the overbearing powers of the legislature but public opinion; and he has been pleased to notice a sentiment I had uttered a sentiment which not only fell from my lips, but which flowed from my heart. It has, however, been misunderstood and misapplied. After reminding the house of the dangers to which popular governments are exposed from the influence of designing demagogues upon popular passion, I took the liberty to say, that we, we the senate of the United States, are assembled here to save the people from their most dangerous enemy, to save them from themselves; to guard them against the baneful effects of their own precipitation, their passion, their misguided zeal. It is for these purposes that all our constitutional checks are devised. If this be not the language of the constitution, the constitution is all nonsense. For why are the senators chosen by communities, and the representatives directly by the people? Why are the one chosen for a longer term than the other? Why give one branch of the legislature a negative upon the acts of the other? Why give the president a right to arrest the proceedings of both, till two thirds of each should concur? Why all these multiplied precautions, unless to check and control that impetuous spirit, that headlong torrent of opinion, which has swept away every popular government that ever existed. With the most respectful attention, I heard the declaration of the gentleman from Virginia, of his own sentiment. "Whatever," said he, "may be my opinion of the constitution, I hold myself bound to respect it." He disdained, sir, to profess an attachment he did not feel, and I accept his candor as a pledge for the performance of his duty. But he will admit this necessary inference from that frank confession, that, although he will struggle (against his inclination) to support the constitution, even to the last moment, yet when, in spite of all his efforts, it shall fall, he will rejoice in its destruction. Far different are my feelings. It is pos |