vil war, and they and we
were at its commencement alike British subjects. Native
Britons, therefore, then taking arms on our side, gave them the
same rights as those who were born in this country, and his
motion could be easily modified so as to provide for any that
might be of this description, but no such modification, he was
sure, would be found necessary, for this plain reason, to wit:

"Where were the soldiers of the Revolution who were not
natives? They were either already retired or else retiring to
that great reckoning where discounts were not allowed. If the
honorable gentleman (opposing the proposition) would point his
finger to any such kind of person now living, he would agree to
his being made an exception to the amendment. It was time that
the American people should have a character of their own, and
where would they find it? In New England and in Virginia only,
because they were a homogeneous race--a peculiar people. They
never yet appointed foreigners to sit in that house (of
Congress) for them, or to fill their high offices. In both
States this was their policy: it was not found in, nor was it
owing to their paper constitutions, but what was better, it was
interwoven in the frame of their thoughts and sentiments, in
their steady habits, in their principles from the cradle--a
much more solid security than could be found in any abracadabra
which constitution-mongers could scrawl upon paper.

"It might be indiscreet in him to say it, for, to say the
truth, he had as little of that rascally virtue, prudence, he
apprehended, as any man, and could as little conceal what he
felt as affect what he did not feel. He knew it was not the way
for him to conciliate the manufacturing body, yet he would say
that he wished with all his heart that his bootmaker, his
hatter, and other manufacturers, would rather stay in Great
Britain, under their own laws, than come here to make laws for
us, and leave us to import our covering. We must have our
clothing home-made, (said he,) but I would much rather have my
workmen home-made, and import my clothing. Was it best to have
our own unpolluted republic peopled with its own pure _native_
republicans, or erect another Sheffield, another Manchester,
and another Birmingham, upon the banks of the Sch